Underland
by jellyheart84
Summary: Emma is having a hard time making ends meet in a Season 1 Storybrooke world, so Ruby gets her a job at the town's strip club, run by Ursula the Sea Witch. Swan Queen.
1. Storybrooke's Dirty Little Secret

_**This story takes place during season 1…before Emma got her job as Sheriff.**_

* * *

Emma got the waitress's attention at Granny's after she' d downed her second refill of coffee. She was down to her last one hundred bucks. Rent was due in two weeks and she'd promised Henry ice cream. That didn't leave any space in her budget for luxuries like lunch.

"Hey- Ruby, right?"

The thin girl with bright red extensions clipped into an Amy Winehouse beehive put her hand on the hip of her short shorts and raised an eyebrow.

"Are you guys…hiring right now?"

"Nope." Said Granny, who ran the diner, as she walked by the two. "If you haven't noticed, this town is as tight as my granddaughter's pants. Are you going to want anything to go with your third cup of coffee or what?"

"Just the refill thanks." Emma said glumly, and the older woman rolled her eyes, refilled her cup and moved on. After she was out of earshot, Ruby leaned in close.

"Granny's _never_ hiring. She pays me below minimum wage because we're family and she knows I won't report her. But if you need a job, I know a place that is that you might be a fit for."

Emma's eyebrows shot up.

"I'm doing a shift over there myself tonight. If you want to meet me here tonight around ten I can give you a ride over."

"At ten? PM? Is it like…an all night diner or…?"

Ruby looked both ways before leaning in even further. "Girl, obviously it's a strip club. Storybrooke's dirty little secret. But most of the girls in town have put in a few shifts at one time or another to make rent. Remember that Ashley chick, who almost sold her baby to Mr. Gold?"

Emma nodded.

"She met her boyfriend when she did a spin around the pole and one of her Lucite heels flew off and landed right in his lap. Now he's supporting her working down at the cannery. "

"Sounds like a fairy tale ending." Emma said sarcastically.

"Let's just say if you get a couple regulars, you'll never worry about money again." Ruby said, snapping her gum and then calling over Emma's head, "Oh _hi_ Graham!"

Graham's cheeks turned bright pink.

It was a long ride through the woods in Ruby's low rider. She was snapping her gum and beating her jewel-encrusted fake nails on her steering wheel in time with a blaring rock song. The pounding music didn't encourage questions as they drove through winding woody roads. When they parked in back of a low, long A-frame building with red neon letters spelling out "UNDERLAND" out front.

"I'll introduce you to the owner. Just follow my lead."

Although it was quiet in the wood, gravel-scattered parking lot once the door opened music seemed to roll out of the inside of the club in waves. The air smelled heavy with cheap, sweet perfumes, and the lights were a tangle of bright red and a cooler magenta tone. There was a bar right when you walked in and beyond it, separated by a beaded curtain, Emma could dimly make out figures twirling and strutting in the distance.

"Hey Ursula." Red called over the heavy base of Slow Motion by Juvenile. "I have a friend I wanted to introduce to you."

A large, heavyset woman with a shock of white hair and maniacal eyebrows turned around, a sneer carved in red lipstick on her face. She wore a black sparkly halter top that was cut low over her greyish decolletage and was busily polishing some of the bar glasses.

"You're not working the bar tonight, are you?" Ruby asked, leaning against a stool.

"No, giving the stemware a little spit polish. Also, you have ten minutes before your shift, so let's make this quick." she shot a glance at Emma."You want to dance?"

Emma felt on the spot. She wasn't quite sure if she really did want this gig but she didn't want to get into a debate about it so she nodded. Ursula started going through a familiar spiel, ticking points off on her fingers, the tip of each sparkling with a blood-colored nail.

"Well, first off the house fee is $150. On a busy night, if you hustle, you can make as much as six hundred, so that's _more_ than fair. No drugs. No hookers. No fighting. Period. Zip. Zilch. If you're going to use the lockers you're responsible for buying your own padlock and if you don't and your things get stolen that's not my concern. Capiche?"

"Sure…" said Emma unsteadily. A group of guys was filtering in past them, and she felt a surge of alarm at the idea of guys pawing at her while she was in her unmentionables. She had definitely never done anything like that before.

"No touching." Said Ursual, as though reading her mind. "You can touch them, they can't touch you. Can you actually dance?"

Emma definitely couldn't. "Sure." She bluffed.

"Well that'll make a change." Ursula said chummily. "By the way, what's your name, Princess?"

"Emma." Emma squeaked.

"Well tell you what: hang around for a bit, meet some of the other girls, see how we run things here and if you're still interested tomorrow get yourself some… proper gear and shoes and show up at 10 and we'll throw you in the deep end and see if you swim. Ruby, get going. Thanks for the introduction. Now go get your damn clothes off." She blew the dust out of a shot glass and filled it to the brim and pushed it towards Ruby, who threw it back without a blink.

"Follow me." Ruby said, and lead Emma through the beaded curtain.


	2. Layers Upon Layers

Emma gulped and followed Ruby through the beaded curtain. On the actual club floor, the building seemed to lose its shape, just a tangle of darkness and red silhouettes above the mirror-reflective surfaces of the stages. A thin catwalk lined one wall with paths to two main stages, poles placed every ten feet. On the far side of the room were three red curtains, dramatically lit, which drew Emma's eye. She didn't bother asking any questions, the music was overpowering, probably to mask any sound of the women's tall platforms. Five dancers were on the floor, one spun in a lazy arc around a pole like a bored kid at a jungle gym, most languished provocatively in chairs. Emma followed Ruby through another beaded curtain and then as she popped open a dark door into a brightly lit locker room.

The lighting was fluorescent and harsh inside, three walls lined with small brown metal cubbies, with two benches that ran the room that reminded Emma of her softball team days. The other wall was a floor to ceiling mirror with a wood table built into it on which three girls were sitting and laughing, their whoops echoing in the small room, cheap beauty products taking up every other inch of space.

"Phew!" Ruby shot Emma a smile before spinning a combination lock and popping open a locker. "She really took to you. Good call wearing those jeggings, they really leave nothing to the imagination."

Emma didn't mention they were only pants she had. "So what now?"

Ruby shrugged, pulling her jacket off. "Hang out. Get the feel of things. If any of the girls come up to you let them know you're going to be working here. Or you know, get a lapdance. Whatever." Ruby snorted with laughter, then looked a little shyly at Emma. "What do you think so far?"

Emma tried not to sound too judgemental or like a fuddy duddy. "It's, um, interesting. Ursula is…"

"A total bitch. I know. We all hate her. But she's kind of got a monopoly on easy money, you know? Girl, check this out-" Ruby pointed to her tiny jean shorts, tugging the waist band down to reveal even smaller, skintight shorts beneath.

"The key to this job is layers. I've got another pair of panties on under this and a thong under those. Twenty dollars for each item, get it? They get so mad when they realize how many layers they have to get through. It's hilarious." she double-checked the ankle strap of her red six inch platform. "Okay. Off to the mines."

"Hi Ho!" the other girls called as if on cue, some private joke between them. "Hi ho!" Ruby laughed back. "It's off to work we go!"

Emma looked at the girls sitting by the mirror, who were still laughing, even as they checked her out. One of them had long bright red hair with hipster side swept bangs and a purple bikini top on with a shell patter on the cups. She gave Emma a small smile. "Your first night?"

"Tomorrow will be…maybe." Emma said, blushing.

"I've been here for years and every day I say, mmmaybe I'll come back tomorrow night. And I _always_ do." The girl smiled, her huge blue eyes a little sad. "I mean, ultimately it's just temporary. One day I'm going to be a singer." Emma nodded, one eyebrow up. The girl stood up and tottered for a second on her sky-high heels, Emma noticed her legs were unbelievably perfect. She gave Emma a smile as she clopped toward the door. "But, if you _are_ going to work here, you should have a stage name. Mine's Shelley."

Emma stayed the whole night until closing, mostly hanging out in the locker room and by the bar, but occasionally peeking in to see Ruby crawling across the stage on all fours, her garter stuffed with wads of bills. After the night was through she offered to drive Ruby, who'd been bought more than a few drinks, and Ruby agreed, greatful for the chance to count through her money again. Emma couldn't argue with the numbers:all told, Ruby was taking home $650 after paying Ursula her house fee.

"Tomorrow." Ruby said as Emma crawled out of her car in front of her apartment building. "We're going to get your gear. You got to look sharp tomorrow night. And stage name and SONG. Got it?"

Emma smiled, her heart hammering. It had been a weird, strange, unexpected side to Storybrooke. She went to bed with the booming bass, the sugary smell and the memories of the girls from the club dancing in her head.

* * *

The next morning Emma practically crawled into the kitchen to see her roommate Mary Margaret white sipping her favorite- chocolate vanilla- while grading papers.

"Hey you." Mary Margaret chirped. "Whatchya got planned today? The sisters are putting on a piano recital at the nunnery if you're interested."

Um. Emma raised her eyebrows. "Actually Ruby's taking me shopping."

"Oh." Mary-Margaret looked a little taken aback. "Well that sounds fun. Can I come?"

"Um…" Emma stalled. How was she going to tell Mary-Margaret that they were shopping for stripper clothes?


	3. Princess

"She's having sort of a tough time…" Emma stammered. "I think she wants to sort of talk about some stuff privately."

"Is it drugs?" Mary Margaret whispered, her eyes huge.

"No." Emma shook her head, grabbing some of the hot vanilla off the stove and pouring it in a mug for herself. Her phone went off. "There she is now. Wow, that's early."

"It's half past noon, Emma." Mary Margaret said, eye brows raised, her voice jokingly chiding. "Someone's been a real sleepyhead."

* * *

Emma got out to the car with her hair passably brushed and her usual jeans and leather jacket. Ruby was blasting the Pixies and grinning, her cat eyeliner and red lipstick as impeccable as usual. "Okay, so, basically I get most of my stuff at the head shop. Underwear just isn't durable enough for the kinds of moves we'll be making and between the sex shop and the head shop you can put together a passable ensemble. The big expense are the shoes."

Emma though guiltily of her atrophied bank account. "how big are we talking?"

"Fifty." Ruby said, wheeling her low rider into a parking spot. "But you'll make it all back tonight. Of course, then you'll want more clothes for tomorrow night. It's addictive! Basically 90% of the reason I keep this job is to feed my slutty clothing addiction." She shifted into park and popped out of the car, grabbing Emma by the arm and leading her into the head shop.

They walked past rows of bongs and joke dice and vaporizers to the way back, where there were some funny t-shirts and a wall of bikinis. Ruby grabbed an insanely small red bikini. "You also need a good garter, to keep your cash in. One for each leg, and you need to go back to your locker a couple times a night to dump the money. There are guys low enough to take one of the dollars you drop and tip you with it again." She pawed through a bin of what looked like lip gloss. "Oh, and nipple paint. Red is kind of my thing, how do you feel about gold?"

"Um…sure?" Holy geez. _Gold nipples?_

"Hey Jefferson!" Ruby called over her shoulder. "Got any more red nipple paint?"

Emma saw a guy with a scar around his neck look up from the desk. "Fresh out. Have you tried the Pleasure Chest yet?"

"That's our next stop." Ruby winked at him.

The Pleasure Chest was somehow much worse than the head shop. At least before buying a bikini, Emma hadn't been blushing every five minutes. Ruby was picking out thin panties and tiny thongs. "Layering. It's all about layering. Have you picked your song yet?"

"My song? Geez…do I need a song?"

"For your first dance. Start thinking about it. It's sort of a psychological hurdle so you need something that will make you feel really sexy and brave. Just bring it on an ipod. Bringing your own music is a good move because eventually, when you start getting regulars, they'll pay for a private room and you'll want to have a playlist of songs ready to really tailor it to them." Ruby pulled her own ipod, in a red-spangled case, out of her cheetah-print bag. "See, this is my list for Graham-'Howl' by Florence and the Machine…'Hungry Like the Wolf'by Duran Duran…'She Wolf' by Shakira…"

"Wow. Graham has like, a wolf fetish." Emma laughed nervously.

"Huh?" Red looked at her ipod. "Oh yeah, wow, that hadn't occurred to me." She put the ipod in her bag and raised one finger upwards as though suddenly struck by a great idea. "Baby blue. To make your eyes pop. And cheetah Print: Emma, there is not a man in this world who can resist a good cheetah print. But first, your shoes…"

Emma baby-ducked after Ruby to the back of the store, where maybe twelve models of Lucite heels- some black, some red, most clear- sparkled on a modest shelf of boxes. She grabbed a pair of t-strap seven inch heels and handed them to Emma. Their straps were studded with fake diamonds.

"Sixty-eight dollars?!" Emma cried out, almost hysterical. That would empty her bank account. "Can't I just wear regular heels?"

Ruby shook her head, her face stern. "Nope. These are the money makers, Emma, I'm telling you. Without these you're every lady down at the municipal pool. But you put these on and bam- you're a gazelle made of sex romping through the forest, making his blood boil, making him want to just pounce on you. Plus, this is a physical sport, Emma. This is like hockey or football or anything else. There's something about these shoes that keep you going all night long, all night strong."

Emma begrudgingly put the heels in her basket, promising herself she'd make it back. She'd have to. She had several hundred dollars to make, so this was- in its own, very weird way- an investment in her future.

That night Ruby picked her up at 10, and Emma felt weirdly excited as she raced out to the car, calling a goodbye before Mary-Margaret could get a glimpse of her. She wore her jacket and jeans over her "working clothes" as Red called them. Ruby greeted her from the front seat with a big smile.

"Song?"

"Got it." Emma said, holding up Mary Margaret's little mp3 player she'd guiltily borrowed.

"Stage name?"

"I was thinking Princess? Its what your boss called me."

Ruby gave her a funny look.

"What, is it taken?"

"Noooo,its fine, I guess I just wasn't expecting that. You seem more like a 'Vixen' or 'Blaze' or something."

By the time they made it through the woods to the staff parking, Emma was practically hyperventilating. Ruby opened the door and peered inside. "Are you okay?"

"I can't do this." Emma managed, her voice shaking. "What if no one tips me or asks me for dances and I end up owing Ursula money?"

"No way that's going to happen. With those booty shorts we got you? Please. The guys in there are going to be crying for mercy."

"I guess I just…" she had never said this before to anyone but it came flying out of her mouth before she could edit herself. "I don't even know if I like guys, you know? I mean…since Henry's dad left me- he _really_ hurt me and…I'll just be faking it, you know?"

"You and me both sister." Ruby said, rolling her eyes. "I borderline hate dudes myself, except for Graham who is my precious little piggy bank man. Now let's go inside and rob these suckers blind."

* * *

Emma was still shaking hard when Ruby walked her, arm in arm to the locker room. Ursula waved her a hello and asked for her mp3 player, telling her she'd go up within the next hour. "Just listen for your name. Emma, right?"

"Princess." Emma stuttered. "My name is going to be Princess."

Ursula smiled mockingly flourished her hand. "Sure thing, your majesty."


	4. Heart of Glass

The other girls in the locker room, as Emma waited to hear her name and shuddered, assured her it would be fine. When she heard Ursula's voice booming over the mic she felt her stomach clench. What if she threw up? All over the red bikini over the cheetah print panties and it soaked through to the blue lace thong? That would probably not be conducive to tips.

"Go get that money!" Ruby growled in her ear and Emma strutted towards the stage as evenly as she could in her moneymakers.

Her song was starting up, "Heart of Glass" by Blondie. It had less bass and almost qualified as a golden oldie but somehow it had felt right the night before when she was scrolling through Mary Margaret's play lists on her work laptop. Not that there were a ton of options. The shimmering beat kicked in and the lights were so bright in her eyes she couldn't' see the crowd- but she could feel them. Without question, she felt every eye in the house locked on her.

And like steam, the fear evaporated. As trembling and frightened as she'd been before, suddenly Emma felt completely in control. More at home in the spotlight than she'd felt in years. Everyone was hanging on her smallest move. She sauntered up to the pool and leaned from it, making a slow circle carefully. No advanced moves yet. There were some appreciative hoots and someone said "Take it off, baby!"

Oh yeah. That part.  
Emma shrugged out of her bikini strap and then the other, dancing playfully to the music. The floor was quickly scattered with bills, luring her towards the customers. She could swear she could feel the temperature in the room rise as she wriggled out of her tiny shorts along the edge of the catwalk, writhing across the stage, feeling her hair fall across her face, picking up the tips and putting them in her garter herself with a wink. These weren't just ones- there were tens and twenties! It was liketaking candy from a baby.

The money in her garter felt like a trophy, and she felt so much physically lighter once she was down to her thong and the tiny, lacy blue bra, like a beam of light flitting across the stage, the adrenaline pumping through herr. As the song game to a close, she gave the stage one last scan, hoping none of the wads of bills had come out of her thong and garter (yes, she had gotten brave enough to let guys put tips in her thong themselves- one guy she thought she'd heard called Marco looked about ready to have a heart attack), and she was a little surprised to hear disappointed boos as she skipped off stage, where Ursula was waiting with folded arms.

"You do know these are supposed to be _topless_ dances?" she said, glaring at Emma's little blue bra top. "This isn't a bikini bar."

Emma's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, right." She turned around and went back onstage, stood full in the spotlight. She could feel every eye in the room fastening on her again. With a casual gesture she untied her bra and whipped it away. The gold nipple paint caught the light in a surprisingly dramatic fashion and there was a deafening roar of applause that made the next dancer stop what she was doing and turn around to look- and laugh, and applaud herself. Wolf whistles split the air. Emma curtseyed dramatically and she heard a voice boom on a mic, "Let's give it up for Princess!"

She walked by Ursula, smiling. "That work?"

"That'll be just fine, Princess. Next dance though, try and be a little less _demure_."

Ruby met her in the locker room and gave her a hug so tight she almost lifted her off the floor. "That was amazing! You were hot out there! We'll need to improve on your pole work but once we add a little of that in and you'll be set." Ruby said seriously, falling back into her role as mentor.

"I don't know, that pole seems sort of above my level." Emma was still relishing her high, getting congratulations and high-fives from dancers she hadn't even spoken to yet.

A smaller girl with white blonde hair in a pixie cut and a sparkling green tube top chimed in. "I can help you. We'll get you flying around the pole in no time. You just have to believe in yourself. And the pole of course. And a pinch of fairy dust." She said, referring to the spray-on body glitter she was coating herself with. "And of course, you have to clap."

"Clap?" Emma said, startled.

"You clap your legs around the pole really tight, that's the trick. I call it clapping. Clap and believe, and a pinch of fairy dust and you can work that pole straight on 'til morning. " The tiny girl nodded.

"Get your breath back, put your money away and then let's get back out there. When you're between dances that's the time to work the floor. Just remember Ursula freaks out if you talk too much with the guests. We're not really allowed to unless they buy a private room." Ruby said seriously.

Emma saw Shelley unwind herself from her perch on the dressing table that ran along the mirror. She had a pair of pink panties on, green sparkly heels and nothing else, but her hair was so long and red it almost served as a top, covering her chest mermaid-style.

"Ursula says the men out there-" Shelley gestured with her thumb to the hall that lead out of the locker room, " don't want a lot of blabber. They think a girl who gossips is a bore. Verbatim quote."

"Well, talk is cheap." Ruby agreed. "Buy a lap dance and I'll talk your ear off."

Emma nodded, distracted now by the mass of money around her leg. She counted out the bills with a widening smile and put them carefully in her locker. The house fee was paid by just that one dance, with a few bills left over.

"Come on." Shelley said, smiling. "I'll show you how to work the floor."

_**Next chapter: Madam Mayor?**_


	5. An Unexpected Customer

When the lights came on at the end of the night, Emma counted out $150 for Ursual and had $450 left over, with a sense that if she worked up a little nerve the next night she could have rent and then some by the end of the week. _And_ she could take Henry out for pizza.

Shelley wasn't the best teacher at working the room because she didn't really have to say a word- guys caught one look of her ridiculous legs and waist-length red hair and dug deep in their pockets. "Maybe it's for the best if I don't do lap dances." Emma confessed when Ruby got offstage, lightly sweating from some particularly adept pole work. "I mean, it's not like I know how."

"Oh?" Ruby said, a spark in her eye. Ever the businesswoman, Ruby made a customer buy Emma a lap dance from her, and as Emma sat there, her blush hidden in the blur of shadows and red light, Ruby hovered delicately, her skin an atom's distant from Emma's bare skin, moving sensually over her lap, while a ring of customers tipped them both out the entire time. Ruby and Emma were still laughing about it when she dropped Emma off.

"See- you were born for this!" Ruby said in parting.

"Maybe." Emma said, her cheeks bright pink. "See you tomorrow night?"

"Every last bit of me." Ruby joked, and disappeared into the early dawn.

* * *

"Say Emma…" Mary Margaret came in the door with a laundry basket. "Are you going on vacation soon?"

"No…why?"

"Well, I put a load of your stuff in with mine when I did laundry and it was almost all bikinis. I mean, you did pay rent early this month and I…I was a little worried you might be leaving Storybrooke for somewhere sunnier." Mary Margaret looked relieved for a moment as she set the basket down in an armchair, then puzzled when she came back up, folding a pillowcase with a concerned look. "So… what _are_ all the swimsuits for? I counted at least five."

"Um…I, uh, started doing laps at the Y."

"Oh. In bikinis?" Mary-Margaret's voice was cheerfully thoughtless as she started folding her lacy white tee camisoles. "I thought one-pieces were better for laps. Do you want to borrow one of mine?"

"I just…you know…I like to feel feminine."

Mary Margaret looked at her roommate, currently in jeans, a men's undershirt and undone motorcycle boots, sitting with her legs wide apart on the couch with a half-finished hoagie in her hands. Mary Margaret felt the tiniest bit suspicious.

* * *

It made Emma feel a little queasy to lie to Mary Margaret, but otherwise life had suddenly become, for the first time in her life, incredibly easy. She'd go in to dance from 10 until closing, then go home and sleep until just before Henry got out of school. She'd walk him either to his street or to Granny's for some cocoa, get home by five and make dinner with Mary Margaret. Then after Mary Margaret got out her homework to grade, she'd sneak off to her room, put on some sexy music and get ready for Ruby to pick her up again. With frequent stops at the bank to deposit her earnings. Although a fair percentage was disappearing into what Ruby called "maintenance": bottles of spray tan. Sticks of deodorant. Body spray, breath spray, false eye lashes and a fat electric hair curler. Still, she could now afford to stay in Storybrooke indefinitely.

Her third week in, Emma had learned to work the floor. Ruby kept insisting that she needed to find a regular, but Emma felt weird about the element of relationship and belonging that seemed to blossom between the dancers and their regulars. Like Shelley and Derek, a black-haired, blue-eyed young guy who looked way to cute to have to pay to get girls to take their clothes off. Shelley never said a word to him, but night after night he would take her into one of the private, red-curtained "champagne" rooms and pay for hour after hour. Graham too would disappear with Ruby. The pixie-haired Fey would disappear with Archie, and he'd re-emerge with his glasses slightly askew. Emma had had some offers, but she found herself passing.

* * *

Emma approached the bar with an order for three shots and a handful of money from a table of customers. She was putting in a few hours doing waitress duty before her next dance, which meant donning a small lace apron over her thong and a pair of little rabbit ears, playboy bunny style. She hummed along to the song playing in the club- "Destroy Everything You Touch" by Ladytron, tapping her fingers against her tray. Usually Ursula got rid of bothersome customers who held up the bar fairly quickly, but she seemed to be pleading with this one.

"Of course, but of course." Ursula pressed her hands together under her chin in a gesture of appeal. "I had no idea it was so soon. No, I don't want my business license revoked, Madam. I had no idea I was overdue on renewing it! I can renew it now, if you'll just let me go to the office to cut the check- I appreciate you coming in person during business hours…maybe you'd like a drink on the house while you wait?" she reached out a plump arm and snapped her fingers. "Princess!"

Madam? Emma took in the silouhette of the customer who had taken so long at the bar- the feminine shoulders in a black peacoat, the dark silky hair. And gulped.

"Please seat this customer at once."

"I don't believe this." Snarled a throaty voice, rich with laughter. Emma met the dark, sparkling eyes of the Mayor of Storybrooke. Regina raked her eyes over Emma in a long, lingering glance that traveled, missing no details, from Emma's sparkling seven inch heels, to her lacy little apron, to her bulging transparent blue lace bra with twenties edging the straps like lace, and after a beat, her bunny ears, a sneer on Regina's face.

"Princess? Well well well." Regina purred. "Let me just enjoy this. Someone finally found her level here in Storybrooke."

"Does Madam know Princess?" Ursula looked suddenly concerned.

"Madam would like to take 'Princess' into a private room." Regina growled through clenched teeth. "Now."


	6. Spotlight

Shaking, Emma followed Regina past the mysterious red curtains that she'd avoided for so long, tucking the Mayor's crisp cash between her upper thigh and garter. Inside, the walls of the private room was papered in a rich red velvet, the floor a sparkling black and white parquet. There was a brass pole installed a few feet away from a black leather wing-backed chair. As Emma took it all in, she saw a flash from Regina's hands, and realized the mayor was snapping pictures of her with her phone.

"Hey- no cameras are allowed in here!" Emma cried, aghast, shielding her face with her hands.

"Why do you think I wanted a private room?" Regina said, pocketing the camera. "Miss Swan, you've put Henry in my hands for once and for all with that trashy little get up of yours. Allow me to thank you, and whatever brothel loaned you those undershorts."

"Please-" Emma's face went pale. "Don't show those pictures to Henry."

"I would never willingly traumatize my son that way." Regina's face moved closer to Emma's, so close Emma could smell her expensive perfume wafting from within her coat. "But if you ever threaten my custody of Henry, rest assured these pictures will be plastered across every newspaper in Maine."

Emma crossed her arms protectively over her chest, her heart sinking, feeling more ridiculous and panicked than she'd ever felt before as Regina strode over to the chair and sat down, a triumphant smile on her scarlet lips, and stared at her for a long beat, taking in every inch of Emma's figure, her eyes impossible to read. The Ladytron song playing outside echoed in the small room in the moment of silence between the blonde and brunette:

_Destroy everything you touch… today…destroy me this way…anything that may desert you…so it cannot hurt you…_

"So, Miss Swan. I'm curious. How do you like taking your clothes off for money?"

Emma looked at her with furious eyes, her mouth pressing into a stern line.

"I paid $75 for half an hour of your time, Miss Swan. I might as well get _something_ out of it."

"Like humiliating me?" Emma hissed through clenched teeth.

"That'll do." Regina lifted one manicured eyebrow and laid each of her hands on the chair's leather armrests. "Tsk tsk tsk, you do look _spectacularly_ trashy-'Princess'." she laughed, un-crossing her legs and crossing them in the other direction, clearly enjoying herself. "Was this your career in Boston as well?"

"I only started doing this after I came to _your town_ after _my son_ brought me here because there are _no other jobs_ in this place, if you haven't noticed. Your city's economy sucks." Emma pulled her shoulders back, standing proudly, refusing to let Regina know how wounded she felt.

"Then leave."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you." said Emma, bending down and meeting Regina eye-to-eye. Regina's fingers dug into the leather armrests. Emma felt heat flush through her in a way she didn't know how to explain. It felt like rage, only stronger, more electric- standing close to Regina, she had an unbearable urge to tear the coat off Regina, tear her pricy blouse off too- that would wipe that superior smirk off her face. Instead she fumbled at her garter, pulling out the cash Regina hand handed her as they went in the room and throwing it, with an aggressive gesture, right in her lap.

"Take your money. I won't stand here and be humiliated at any price."

Emma barreled out of the private room and made for the lockers, her face hot. Ruby tried to stop her but Emma put up a hand.

After twenty minutes, Ruby came and found Emma in the dressing room.

"You're up next you know. On the main stage."

"Is…is the Mayor gone?"

"The Mayor? Who, Mayor McCheese? Are you high? The Mayor doesn't even know this place exists."

"Apparently she does. _And_ that I work here."

The tinny speaker in the locker room resounded off the walls with a metallic twang: "And now on stage #1, we have our lovely _PRINCESS_!"

"Crap." Emma said, hurrying out to the stage.

* * *

The lights were too bright at first for her to pick out any faces in the crowd. Usually she felt so impersonal and in control on stage, she tried to own that feeling, to get lost in the music, it was Peaches' "Boys Wanna Be Her", with a heavy bass. She let the bravado in the music seep into her, soothe her. Regina had probably collected her check and left long ago anyway. Emma swung from the pole, the way Ruby had shown her, and put one leg and then the other around, letting one arm sweep the floor, the way Fey had demonstrated for her last week. She pulled off her icy blue top and heard the audience stir appreciatively at the sight of her trademark gold-tipped boobs, then stretched her arm up, pulling herself further up the pole, letting her leg extend. As she whirled in the spotlight, she thought she saw Regina's form, far back in the crowd. Was she still there? The idea was bizarrely exciting.

Emma whirled around the pole again, letting herself spin down to the floor in a graceful, balletic curve before stretching flat against the floor and then rising up on all fours to crawl like a kitten. Emma threw a glance over her bare shoulder as the men scattered money in front of her like flower petals.

It _was_ Regina. And Regina was watching Emma with more intensity than any man in the room.

The feeling of power that swept through Emma was a rush like nothing she'd ever felt before, a sweet warm heat flooding through every inch of her.

_Why, Madam Mayor_, she chuckled inwardly. _Try putting your eyes back in your head._


	7. A Nasty Drunk

Emma kept an eye out for Regina on the floor when she made her way, panting from the stage. But Regina had gone. "Phew." Emma said loudly, as though someone could hear her. But the rest of the night, she found herself raking the dark with her eyes, looking for Regina's smirk in the shadows.

* * *

"You came home late again." Mary Margaret said Saturday morning, when Emma dragged herself towards the coffee maker in the middle of the afternoon. Mary Margaret was watching Pride and Prejudice. All six hours of the 90's, A&E version. For the third time, since Emma had lived there.

"Me and Ruby went out last night." Emma said, itching her long blond, ratted hair. She'd need to shower, blow dry it, and curl it with her hot iron. Meaning she had about two more hours before she should start getting ready for work.

"You guys have so much fun." Mary Margaret said, smiling a little too widely. "I wish you'd let me come out sometime. I don't work tomorrow if you're going out tonight!"

Emma smiled a closed-mouth smile. "Actually I have to go um, I mean Ruby and I are hanging out but I think we're just going to kind of like, be with her Granny and…"

"Hey it's cool!" Mary-Margaret put her hands up. "Not trying to invite myself along. Just wanted to let you know I'm open to the idea. I can go out sometimes, believe it or not. I've even been described, by some, as a party animal."

_Septuagenarians? _ Emma thought, but didn't' say anything, just nodded. "We'll go out next weekend. I promise."

"Also…you left a jar of, um…gold nipple paint in the bathroom?…"

Emma felt suddenly as though she was about to drop through the floor. She gripped the counter and gulped her coffee, stalling for time. Mary Margaret made a gesture with her hand. "Just wanted to let you know. You know, whatever, _I _don't care, I just saw it on the counter and thought it was my lip gloss and then I noticed it… wasn't, and I put it in the drawer so in case you're looking for it…it's in the drawer."

"Thanks…" Emma said. "Good to know. You're awesome."

Mary Margaret's eyes looked shiny and she grinned. "Now come watch this next part with me. Darcy's going to _propose_!"

Emma gratefully curled up on the sofa next to her roommate.

* * *

Ruby looked Emma up and down appreciatively. "Now that's what I'm talking about. That's stripper _glam_. Gold sequin thong? Check. Gold bikini? Check. Gold eye shadow!? Check, check, and _check!_" She threw an arm around Emma, pointing at her and announcing to the rest of the locker room, "I taught this bitch everything she KNOWS!"

The room was jam packed with strippers on the Saturday shift. They were buckling their platforms, getting their garters ready, spritzing each other with body glitter and going double on the deodorant. Emma could feel, when she went onto the floor, the heat, the joy of the weekend crowd. People were here to party, to cut lose, to shake off the fog of Storybrooke's day to day…but one person, leaning heavily on her table ,cocktail in hand, was an icy island in the general sea of good will. Despite the fedora hat cocked at a dramatic angle to hide her face, Emma recognized Regina immediately and sat at her table, aware of the shimmer her golden booty shorts and bikini top sent up under the gentle glare of the red lights.

"Well hello Mayor." Emma said coldly, glaring into the shadow cast expertly to hide Regina's eyes. Her red, painted lips were still in full effect. "Underland's license needs renewing again already?"

"I'm building my case file." Regina said haughtily. "A few more pictures of you humping that catwalk and I can get a restraining order between you and Henry."

"Stripping isn't illegal, Regina. And _many_ of the strippers here are moms- _good_ moms." Emma said, crossing her arms, feeling suddenly at a disadvantage. "Is that really why you're here? Because if you get out a camera I'll call over the bouncers-"

"Leave Flotsam and Jetsam be." Regina said, putting up a hand tentatively. "No need for you to bring attention to my presence in this cesspool. Shouldn't you be…rubbing up against people for quarters or something?"

"Wow." Emma snapped, sitting up straight. "So you're here just to make fun of me, is that it?"

"Basically." Regina peered at her from under the brim of her hat. The cold, dark force of her glittering black eye nailed Emma back down to the seat she had been about to leave. "If you don't like my presence, 'Princess' then I encourage you to bundle up some of the singles you've earned dry-humping strangers and buy a ticket to Florida, or anywhere else you can make money off sad old men now you've discovered the women's clothing section at WalMart." Regina might have been a little drunk, Emma realized. Her words were slightly slurred. Still, Emma felt incredibly ridiculous, even a little sick that she'd spent so much time and care dressing for the night. For hoping Regina would come back, for being so insanely flattered that she had.

"Forget you." Emma said, and walked off.

Ursula gestured her over with a fingertip. "What song, Princess darling?"

Emma handed her her ipod. "Scroll down to number three." She said angrily. She'd ridden a couple laps, hard, in the last fifteen minutes. She'd had to go back to the locker room three times to dump her money. But there was a burning sensation in her chest she couldn't ignore. And she couldn't shake the feeling Regina was watching her, and for the first time she felt dirty making guys like Marco a little happy with her efforts. Dirty and sad.

Ursula, with an uncustomary flare for drama, brought down all the lights at the beginning of Emma's song: - Robyn's "Dancing On My Own", and then faded it up high. It was a little angsty for a weekend, but the crowd seemed into it, as Emma moved down the catwalk, discarding underpants, letting a strap fall down her shoulder, letting her heavily khol-lined green eyes rake the room with disarming indifference. She could sense Regina sitting up to attention. Hell, they all were.

As she wrapped her legs at the top of the pole and let herself hang down, she felt perfect silence fall over the bar, and then applause as she released both arms and one leg, and then let herself cascade down, almost singing along with the lyrics: _I'm givin' it my all, but I'm not the girl you're taking home. I'll keep dancing on my own…_

She wound herself in jagged crawls across the stage, letting the men tuck money in her thong, the only things till on her taut body, save her flowing hair and paint. She shot a fiery look at Regina, who didn't look away- only lifted a cigarette to her lips and inhaled deeply.

_Smoke can't cool fire_, Emma thought, and lay on her back on the stage, lifting her legs high over her head in an inverted pose that made the most of legs.

A hand came out from the crowd and cupped around her breast. "Watch it!" Emma cried, immediately sitting upright.

Did she imagine it, or did the man suddenly pull his hand back as though stricken? He leapt from his seat and ran off. Emma, for what reasons he didn't understand, looked over at Regina's table. Regina was on her feet, her chair fallen behind her, her fists clenched, her eyes…was she seeing this right in the magenta and red lights? Her eyes seemed to glow with an unearthly purple light.


	8. Haggling

After her song finished, Emma climbed shakily down from the stage, but before she could take even a few steps onto the floor she sensed Regina moving toward her, streaking across the shadowy club. Regina's hand closed around her wrist, and her face was close to hers.

"Come with me at once." Regina said, throatily, and led her toward the private room, pulling her roughly inside.

Emma spun around, in just her gold thong and gold paint, unsure of what was happening. Regina tossed off her hat and ran her fingers through her hair. Her eyes were deeply lined with black eyeliner, which seemed to smudge at the corners, as though from tears.

"How much would it cost for you to leave Underland right now and never dance here again?" Regina said without a smile. She stalked over to the leather wing back chair and sat down. "Two thousand? Five thousand?"

"I-I- look, don't get to tell me how and where I work, Regina. I actually _like_ working here. And it allows me to stay in Storybrooke on my terms, which is obviously your problem with it."

" Say I could pull some strings. Get you a job you could do with your clothes _on_ at City Hall- I mean, unless for some reason you just _enjoy_ disgusting perverts _leering _at you, grabbing you-" Regina folded her arms and stared, one eye brow up.

Emma crossed her arms over her bare chest. "You were leering pretty hard out there yourself, weren't you, Madam Mayor?"

"Don't flatter yourself. I'm just trying to keep Henry's mother out of the news." Regina's face was unreadable, but her gaze flickered away from Emma's.

Emma ran through the moment in her mind again when the man had run off who had groped her onstage, after an electric sound in the air, making a sound of pain. She remembered the look- and the unearthly purple glow- in Regina's eye. Had she imagined it? She had to have imagined it. She stared at Regina trying to figure out what her motivation was for a money offer and a job offer to a woman she claimed to despise.

Emma bent over to get face to face with the mayor, trying to read her but being distracted by the inviting smell of expensive perfume and the dizzy sensation at being within brushing distance of Regina while she, Emma, was so unclothed, then pushed that out of her mind, keeping her voice cool: "It _kills you_ that I've found the one part of Storybrooke you can't control, doesn't it? Well, I'm not interested in some job where I'm under your thumb. And I'm making enough to stay around Henry and I have all the time I need to see him and there's _nothing_ you can do about it."

Regina gripped the arms of the chair, white knuckling it. "What would it cost to keep you in this room the rest of the night?" Regina asked.

Emma felt a traitorous thrill fly through her. Did Regina mean…did Regina want Emma to dance for her? And why would that make her feel so dizzy? Why would that make her heart race and her mouth go dry and all of her body suddenly feel tightly wound and wide awake? "I don't know…maybe- I mean I think Ursula does a night fee for private rooms, plus drinks- something like six or seven hundred-"

Regina nodded, reached into her jacket and pulled out a small thin clutch, counting out seven hundreds and laying them on the arm chair as she stood.

"I wonder if its ever occurred to you that you might be worth more than that." Regina said and walked out of the private room without another word.

* * *

Emma sat in the locker room. She didn't see the need to literally sit in the weird, red private room all night but she felt she owed it to Regina to stay off the floor. That was, in effect, what Regina had paid for- to keep other eyes and hands off her for the night, for whatever reason. Why the possessiveness though, if she herself was just going to take off? And why did she look at her with such heat- such unbearable, palpable wanting when she danced? And why did Emma care?

Strong smells of body spray and the bass from Underland's floor wafted into the room in waves as different dancers came in a half run, panting and sweating from the stage, or snapping gum and angrily complaining about customers, or tiredly straightening and counting bills bunched into the thin straps of their clothing.

"You ever notice how many of our customers are short? I mean REALLY short. I mean short-short, like _dwarf_ short. Storybrooke has got to have more horny midgets than any city in Maine." Ruby grumbled, sitting hard on the bench next to Emma and squirting her water bottle into her mouth like a boxer between rounds.

"Or just complete animals." Fey agreed, salting her arm with translucent white sparkling powder.

"Have any of you guys ever have a customer pay you…_not_ to dance?" Emma asked shyly. She had a t-shirt on now as well as her thong, her bare feet in flip flops, feeling weird about the roll of seven crisp hundred-dollar bills locked in her cubby. What did they really mean? (besides a night off?)

"You mean money for sex? Don't do it girl." Ruby said sternly, shaking her head. "You do NOT want to go down that rabbit hole, right Al?" elbowed a girl sitting further down the bench, who was pulling on white thigh-high stockings, her face half hidden in long blonde hair.

"Eat me." Said Al, with a half-smile and a strangely polished British accent, pulling on and then buckling a 7-inch platform black patent-leather mary jane. "She's teasing me, Princess: I had a boyfriend that started out as a customer but that was a whole weird journey I'd rather forget."

"Well, I didn't mean that exactly." Emma frowned. "I mean- if a customer gave you money so you wouldn't dance for anybody else for the night-What does that mean?"

"Oh, just that they're a creeper. Crazy obsessed stalker, kind of in love with you, that sort of thing. Did they offer to buy your thong off you?" Ruby asked, eyebrows up. "Tell Flotsam and Jetsam. Those two don't look very strong but they carry tasers, so if anyone is being a weirdo-"

"I saw that bloke grab you earlier." Al cut in, pulling her hair away from her face with a headband. "That's not cool. Luckily he ran off or whatevah but normally if a customer does that they get banned."

"Yeah it wasn't exactly fun getting groped." Emma's shoulders shuddered under her shirt. Why did she feel like Regina, in some crazy way, had protected her?


	9. An Unusual Proposition

Ruby's car stalled when she dropped off Emma in front of the house that night. She gave out a curse and smacked the steering wheel.

"I just PAID for repairs! This is why I'll never get out of this stupid, dinky, boondock town. My freaking car is made of trash!"

"Its probably the battery-" Emma pointed to the console. "I think Mary Margaret has some jumper cables, we'll go get them and connect it to the bug." Emma said. "Come on up. But we have to be quiet so we don't wake Mary-Margaret."

Emma and Ruby heard the wild clomping around before Emma got the apartment door open, and the tinny dance beat of "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" on the radio . Mary Margaret was wobbling behind the counter looking weirdly tall and suddenly red-faced as Emma and Ruby came through the door. There were a couple more (a lot less loud) clomps and Mary Margaret walked out from their kitchen area wearing Emma's stripper shoes.

"Hi guys!" Mary Margaret looked thoroughly ashamed. "Emma I'm sooo sorry, I found these under the couch when I was vacuuming and-" she looked from Emma to Ruby. Emma was in her leather jacket, a giant t-shirt, thong and flip flops, the rest of her clothes in a bag. Ruby had on a bikini top, a cropped fur top and a microscopic miniskirt she'd put on backwards.

"I just thought they were so cool and…wow, you two look…fancy." She stepped out of one shoe and held it up, looking from the stripper heel to Emma. Emma had recently gotten new ones with gold accents, and, she realized, left her old ones under the couch yesterday night when she came home from her late shift, shucked them off and watched some TV on the couch before going to bed.

"Waaaaait a minute." Snow said. "Are you guys…are you guys go-go dancers?"

"No girl, we're strippers." Ruby said, hands on her hip. "Tits and bits, the full nine yards, you know what I mean?"

Emma covered her face with her hands.

Mary Margaret was actually pretty cool about it. Emma felt properly ashamed she'd kept it a secret in the first place when she realized how okay and accepting Mary-Margaret was about it. She was so incredibly curious, too, like Emma and Ruby were superheroes.

"So they can't touch you but you can touch them. Can you kiss them?" Snow was bundled up now, knees under her chin, eyes wide open, grilling them intensely. Everyone had a mug of cocoa, Ruby had been hanging out with them for almost an hour, clearly enjoying flaunting her bad girl street cred and playing the expert to not just one but two other ladies.

"Nope. That's a BIG no-no. You never kiss them, they never kiss you. That crosses the line from fantasy to reality."

"But you can kiss regulars?" Mary Margaret, in her school teacher way, had been keeping mental notes, trying to keep track of lingo.

Emma looked to Ruby, uncertain.

"Nope." Ruby shook her head, already waving her hand. "Doesn't matter if they're a regular. A regular is still just paying for the fantasy. It's not a real relationship. Kissing makes it real."

* * *

"Do I smell apple pie?" Ruby slammed her locker shut, sniffing the air. Emma felt her face go red.

"That's me. Demeter scent library." Emma said, peeling off her tight jeans to reveal red booty shorts. Over blue panties. Over much smaller white, lacy panties. Over a gold thong.

"Or my donuts!" a small African American dancer called, cracking open a tupperware container of baked goods and brushing aside deodorant sticks, body spray bottles and empty red drink cups to clear a space. She had a small silver clip in her hair shaped like a tiara and was in a camouflage colored bikini. "Home made!"

"Wow, you have a deep fryer?" Ruby breathed, zipping over to the make up counter where the other girls were congregating. "I think I'm in love."

"Hold it right there." A loud, angry voice resonated sharply off the cement walls and metal lockers. The girls turned to see Ursula barreling through the door, her perpetually dissatisfied sneer in place. "Where's Princess?! Princess!"

The other girls parted and Emma swallowed hard. "Yes?"

"Princess, you're going to be doing hosting duties for the rest of this week for a VIP client. That means you'll be off the stage rotation and you're not to go out on the floor. Just report directly to Private Room 1 for the evening."

"Woooo!" little joking "whooos!" and wolf whistles erupted from the other dancers, who had stopped muching the donuts to listen in.

"Oh? And if I don't like him?" Emma felt her heart going a little quicker.

Ursula's face momentarily frowned. "The client is offering a very special compensation to both the club and to you for your time. If you don't agree to terms, then you can take your things and go." Ursula said quietly.

The other girls started murmuring. "That's not right-" "That isn't fair, Ursula, we always pick-" "Whaa-"

"Oh, you poor unfortunate souls." Ursula rolled her eyes. "Princess, can you at least meet the VIP before you cost Underland –and yourself- a ton of easy money?"

Emma nodded.

"Okay Princess, come with me, I've got a few more instructions for you." The other girls sent searching looks after Emma, who followed Ursual out of the locker room, to the dark hall that connected the dancers with the Underworld floor.

"Here's the terms." Ursula said. "You go in and you dance and you don't talk. If the client wants a lap dance, the client will tap their lap. If they want bottle service, you press the buzzer. No one is to know your regular's name, understood? That part is secret. You get payed the regular hourly rate- but I won't charge a house fee. Pretty fair terms, yes? " Ursula pulled a non-disclosure agreement out of a folder. "If you sign this, you can go in and meet, and if you turn around and decide no that's fine. You're fired, but it's fine."

Emma crossed her arms.

"I don't get to talk to her first?"

Ursula raised an eyebrow. "Her? Then I see we both know whom we're talking about, don't we, Princess? There's to be no discussion with the client. Not a word. But of course, don't underestimate the importance of body language."

Emma took the contract and struck her name at the bottom with a quick gesture, before she could change her mind.


	10. The Champagne Room

Emma moved along the edge of the club foor, sticking to the shadows, seeing the room with the red velvet curtain drawn closed, waiting for her. A sense of dread knotted in Emma's chest and she tried to puzzle Regina out before she'd be confronted with the brain-smashing presence of the Mayor.  
Was this a move to humiliate her? To entrap her? To prove that she could be bought? But why these crazy mind games when _surely_ Regina could decimate her so much more by simply exposing her secret?

Emma bristled, too, at being told to keep quiet. She'd keep Regina's secret and had no problem with the non-disclosure agreement she'd signed…but not talking to Regina? She fully intended to walk into the room and open by demanding what the hell that was supposed to mean.

But when she opened the curtain just wide enough to slink inside the small private room, she saw Regina sitting in the wingback leather chair and inaudibly gasped. Regina sat, her head high, her shoulders back, as though resting on a throne. She was dressed in a black silk dress with a deep v that exposed her collarbones and the smooth skin between her breasts. She was stunningly beautiful, that was the first impression Emma had, but that's not why she gasped. It was the terror and fear on Regina's face. Did she think Emma would laugh? Would turn around and walk back out?

As a matter of fact ,Emma realized, standing before her, she_ had_ to go back outside, to attach her mp3 player to the ipod dock just outside the room. She turned on her heel and stepped out, quickly cuing up a playlist. One of her favorites, "Under Your Spell" by Desire, the Drive remix, started to fade in as she went back into the room.

Regina's shoulders had dropped when Emma came back in, a look of anguish on her face that made Emma want to tell her it was okay. As it was, the click of her heels announced her arrival as the music started swelling, and Emma saw an uncontrollable flicker of some emotion cross Regina's face when she realized Emma hadn't left.

"I had to start the music-." Emma breathed, gesturing behind her. Regina, sitting up fully straight now, swiftly put a finger over her own red, perfectly shaped lips. The gesture made Emma's whole body feel flushed with hot blood, but she nodded. Emma looked at Regina with a face that did not laugh, that did not smile. She took her place in front of the brass pole and looked down at Regina as Regina stared unblinkingly at the woman in front of her, her face falling in a careful and unreadable expression.

Emma started moving a leg in time, letting her large curls fall in front of her face. She took her cue from the music, and let herself start moving around the pole, arching her back and demurely and distantly fixing her eyes on: the spot just above Regina's head. The point where black and white tiles met on the floor. The brass call button so near Regina's hand. A silver bucket of ice on a table near Regina, where a bottle of Dom Perignon was chilling. But she couldn't look into Regina's face. Not into those scalding, searching eyes.

Dancing for a crowd of anonymous guys had felt daring but impersonal, like any performance in front of a crowd. Removing her clothes, in stages, as she moved in front of Regina felt more intense, more intimately revealing than any sexual encounter she could remember. As she slid her shorts down to her knees and let herself fall down to a squat before unhooking a long heel expertly through the leg opening, she heard Regina's sharp intake of breath. And when she arched her back as she came back up, she heard Regina exhale in a moan.

The conundrum: Normally she'd throw her clothes into the crowd, but she couldn't even imagine Regina's rage at getting some damp panties thrown at her. Instead she let them fall in a small pile by the door, letting her big curls fall in front of the thickly-lined eyes that made her too-large eyes swallow up her face. The last time she did this, exposing her whole body in just a gold ribbon of a thong again to Regina, she let her eyes flit to Regina's face. Regina was staring hungrily, her face unsmiling, carved ridges along the arms of the leather chair dug under each immaculate fingernail.

As much as Emma thought she would smart under the no-talking rule, she had to admit it came as a little bit of a relief. With no mocking, hateful insults spurting out of Regina's perfectly formed lips, she could concentrate on the undeniable lust in the Mayor's searching eyes, the latent heat in her expression, the tension that seized her from head to toe, filling the room like summer humidity. Emma herself couldn't undermine or contradict the words of the song as they repeated between the two women: _I don't eat, I don't sleep, I do nothing but think of you…I don't eat, I don't sleep, I do nothing but think of you…you got me under your spell, you got me under your spell, you got me under your spell…_  
As the song wound down, there didn't have to be any defensive explanations, they didn't plunge headlong into bickering. As the song wound down, Emma noticed out of the corner of her eye Regina's hand move down to her slender, tan knee.

And she tapped it.


	11. I'm Not Paying You to Talk

Usually, when Emma stepped on either side of a stranger's lap and began a dance, she locked her hips so she'd hover a healthy 2-3 inches above the guy and let her brain go. She'd watch his eyes glaze over and start organizing her week- when she could do laundry, what she could buy Henry, what she wanted to eat when she got done with her shift.

As she approached Regina, as she slid one knee on either side of the two slim olive knees that rested on the lip of the arm chair, she felt her heart pumping in her chest erratically. She felt full engaged and alarmingly conscious of every muscle in her body, every inch of exposed skin. She wasn't sure how to begin at first as the song started up, "The Happening" by the Pixies, chosen by fate, or at least chosen by the shuffle function of her ipod.

Whereas she was used to seeing the customer's eyes fasten on her and glaze, now she felt her own gaze grow heavy as she got near the small, perfect woman seated so rigidly in front of her, who smelled incredibly good of forest flowers and expensive shampoo. Her eyes fastened on the smooth skin revealed by the deep v of Regina's dress, and how Regina's breath made it rise and fall just a little too fast. She put her weight on her knees and found herself kneeling on the chair facing Regina, only inches between them. As she started moving above Regina's lap, she crossed her arms lightly on the back of the chair, not touching Regina yet closing them both in a small space bounded by her gold hair and the heat coming off her glittering chest. She felt a wild impulse to wind a trail of kisses along Regina's neck and right down over her heart, but felt unsure how it would be received, so she let her large sad eyes press a mental kiss on all the places on Regina she could not.

As they sank deeper into the song, Emma felt a hand suddenly seize her hip, the fingers rough and gripping and as a reflex she flinched back. Regina's face flooded with red.

"Whoa- sorry I-usually that's against the rules but it's okay- I just- you just startled me-"

"Shut up." Regina snapped. "I'm not paying you to talk."

Emma felt the familiar rage flood through her as it usually did whenever Regina opened her mouth. "What the hell is your problem?" she cried, clenching her fists. She was so angry, and confused by the tangle of attraction that shot through her at the memory of Regina's touch, the sensation of which was still pulsing on the surface of her skin, sending fireworks through her entire nervous system in a way she hadn't experienced since her high school years. There was no denying the crackle of tension still between them, the heat that still filled the room.

"Good night, Miss Swan." Regina picked a trench coat up off the back of the chair and threw it around her shoulders, as though shielding herself from the intense atmosphere in the room.

Emma, confused, popped open the champagne bottle left behind and poured herself a glass, which did little to cool her down.

* * *

"So how was tonight?! You're home early." Mary Margaret turned fromSNL to the sound of the door opening and Emma dragging herself in tiredly. While it was a relief not to have to tiptoe around her job anymore, it was possibly even more annoying to have to field Mary Margaret's enthusiasm when she was this exhausted.

"Yeah, I got tired." Emma tried not to flinch thinking of Ursula berating her on her way out: "No talking! The VIP specifically said no talking! Lose this customer and you are out of here!"

Somehow her great plan to get a job so she'd be free from depending on people had totally backfired.

"I might actually start looking for another type of work. This job is starting to depress me." Emma confessed dully, going to the fridge and taking out a cream soda.

"Oh really?" Mary Margaret looked thoughtful. "Well…I'll keep an ear out over at the school. "

"Thanks." Emma didn't want to get into how grossly unqualified she was to teach. Or why exactly she felt so depressed. Because, in fact, she wasn't entirely sure. She only knew the idea of going back to that room made her nerve endings explode like sparklers for a number of different reasons.

* * *

"I tell you to go get a regular, and you manage to get the big granddaddy roller of Underland, apparently." Ruby said frowning as they made their way through a rack of clearance bikinis. "Nice work Emma, nice work."

"You actually don't sound that thrilled."

"Well, the fact the customer is preventing you from doing regular dances and floorwork…I don't know. It kind of concerns me. It seems kind of weird." Ruby's eyebrows shot up. "If Graham tried that I'd laugh him out of there. He knows I don't belong to him, I belong to myself. That's why he pays me. This job is no fun if you don't have the upperhand, you know?"

"But Ursula said she'd fire me if I didn't…"

"Yeah." Ruby looked sadder. "She has the same kind of thing going with Shelley. Shelley would have quit long ago but she owes Ursula some huge amount of money for funding her demo CD. And Ursula got her to sign all these contracts where the fine print made the demo Ursula's poperty, and she's refusing to release it. It's legally Ursula's track because she paid for the mix, even though Shelley wrote it and sang it, and sometimes she says she's going to hire another girl to lip sync it in a video. Shelley wants to take her to court but its cheaper just to work off the money and buy the rights back from Ursula."

"Wow…that's insane." Emma felt a shot of apprehension about the contract she had signed. Surely it was just a simple NDA, right? She'd have to get a copy from Ursula.


	12. No Sex in the Champagne Room

_Please be there. Please._

Emma caught herself silently mouthing the words as Ruby steered the car through the dark woods to Underland. Because she wanted her job, she thought angrily.

"Room Number 1" Ursula said to her as she walked in, her eyes dark. Flotsam and Jetsam, the oily, lanky bouncers, followed her with jaundiced eyes.

"Oh good, she's here." Emma said, staying calm, and continued to the locker room. "I'll just change."

* * *

Neon pink undershorts. A black lace bra. Emma wore a big loose white t-shirt over it all as she crossed the floor to Private Room 1, feeling a little bit like a carefully wrapped present. She set the music before she walked in, her heart in her throat, pulled back the curtain- the room was empty.

Her heart plunged into an acid bath of sadness chemicals, but even alone and unseen in the red dark, she didn't let her expression drop. She never felt hurt by abandonment, just confirmed in her view of the world. She could relax now, now that there was no pressure for things to get better. Once again, the connection had been in her head and whatever cheap lust or empty mockery she had read as something more was another indictment on her desperate need for affection , a need she'd apparently failed to smother to death, despite years of effort . She sat down on the leather armchair and stared miserably at the curtain, about to dash the pesky tears that blocked her view when Regina walked in, in a tight black button up shirt and tailored black pants. She saw Emma and froze. Emma cursed at her own volatile moods: bursting into tears just because Regina wasn't waiting for her, after the contemptuous way Regina had treated her, with the whole fact of who Regina was thrown in- it wasn't exactly classy.

However for the first time since she'd entered Storybrooke and met its beautiful but impossible Mayor, she saw softness fill Regina's face. A momentary beat of surprise and softness, and then Regina straightened her shoulders and put her hands on her hips, cocking one eyebrow.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you aren't getting the night off, _Princess_."

Regina moved to the table beside them and cracked open the new champagne bottle that had been chilling in a bucket near the arm chair. She watched Emma appreciatively as Emma curled up and slung her legs over the arm of the chair, looking up at Regina. She handed her a flute, crisp bubbles tickling their way to the surface, and they clinked.

"Somehow that name suits you." she said. Her tone, for once, wasn't sarcastic.

Once every drop in her glass was drained, Emma stood and led Regina to the armchair, putting her knee between Regina's. Regina gasped, her eyes flashing up to her face. And Emma guided Regina's hands to her hips as she lowered herself and moved softly, the soft jersey of her cotton underwear fully brushing, then pressing on Regina's leg. In time with the music, she felt Regina's hands clutch her and Regina's breath grow ragged. Emma touched Regina's forehead with hers and unashamedly raked Regina's body with her eyes, letting her hands trail from Regina's shoulders to her hands and back, then delicately undoing the first button on her sleek black blouse.

"That's _your_ job." Regina said lightly, plucking at Emma's pink undershorts.

Emma felt a little flare of anger and was about to say something when Regina put her finger to Emma's lips. Incensed, Emma tore Rgina's blouse open, exposing Regina's sheer lace bra. Instead of flying into a rage though, Regina's let out a surprised laugh, a mix of joy and rage.

Emma ducked her face to Regina's neck and started kissing her throat, trailing down to Regina's cleavage, Regina's laugh dissolving into a shivery moan, and just as Regina's arms wound around her waist she pulled back and continued to dance lightly above Regina's lap, her face as still and disaffected as before. Regina's upper lip curled in a bit of a sneer, still cupping Emma's hips protectively, her fingers digging into the well formed curves she had coveted since they first marched off her lawn in Emma's skintight jeggings.

"Tease." She muttered.

"_That's_ my job." Emma whispered.

* * *

Emma came home still humming to herself. Her skin felt like it sparkled all over, every inch Regina had touched seemed to gently tingle. Regina hadn't said much after the blouse ripping, but they had stayed more or less in an embrace for almost two hours, silently taking from each other what they needed. Well, almost what they needed. No sex in the champagne room was one of Underland's biggest rules and Emma felt as though she would not be able to keep from breaking it if Regina showed up the next night with that perfume on. It had an exasperating way of disappearing just as she caught its smell, she had dug her face deeper and deeper into the delicate curve of Regina's neck chasing it before she realized it might just be the smell of Regina herself. Surely that was impossible?

And Regina had responded by digging her fingers into Emma's tangle of blonde curls. Surely she had felt Regina's lips on tangle of hair that fell just over Emma's cheek. That came perilously close to breaking the no-kissing rule that was not just an Underland standard but the uncrossable boundary between creating a fantasy of a relationship and actually…actually having….

"I thought I heard you in here." Mary Margaret padded out to the kitchen, a quilt around her shoulders and her short hair mussed like a kid's. "I just got home from watching a horror movie at Dr. Whale's and I couldn't sleep."

"How's all that going?" Emma smiled at her roommate and got a second glass from the cupboard, then filled both with the vanilla-flavored milk Mary Margaret always kept on stock.

"He's…sort of…nice?"

Probably the harshest words Emma had ever heard Mary Margaret utter. "What did he do?" Emma said, one eyebrow up.

"He always wants to watch zombie movies. That shouldn't be a deal breaker but it sort of is. How about you, how was work?"

"Work is really…tricky."

"Do you have a regular yet?" Mary Margaret dropped the lingo casually.

"Well yes…."

"Squeee!" Mary Margaret said, a small fist pump rocketing out of her quilt.

"But its weird. I don't know. I really can't talk about it."

"Sure you can. You can always tell me anything." Mary Margaret looked a little stung.

"Actually no, like, legally I can't." Emma found her words unspooling, telling Mary Margaret about the contract, the fact that now she couldn't just dance on stage, about the weird tension between her and her unnamed regular.

"I don't know, Emma, it sounds sort of intense. I mean, whoever this guy is sounds pretty possessive. Are you sure he's not crazy?"

"Nope." Emma laughed to herself a little. "But maybe I am too. I mean, its weird, I liked work before but now….its really hard to think about anything else. I just sort of...I like being owned by h-him. I like feeling like his secret, dirty little treasure. I don't know. Its weird."

"Huh." Mary Margaret sipped her cup, holding it in both hands. "Does this mean there's an opening for a new dancer…like…if I wanted to maybe…try a shift out?"


	13. Granny's, in Daylight

Mary Margaret's cheeks had been blood red all day. Emma and Ruby had tried to ease her into it: to the boutique, for flirty tops. Then when they hit the sex shop, the tips of Mary Margaret's ears went red and Ruby pulled Emma behind a row of crotchless underwear while Mary Margaret disappeared into a dressing room (carefully pulling the curtain tightly closed.)

"I really do not approve of this shituation going on right now." Ruby cast a side-eye at the closed curtain. "I have a feeling she's going to chicken out. She kept asking me if she could keep a corset on."

"Look, do you honestly think she's going to go through with this? There's just no way. She just wants to hang out with us, and I like hanging out with her, so, whatever. Let her live out her fantasy."

"I don't know, she seems pretty determined." Ruby looked fretful, and then they both heard the giggling from the dressing room.

"Oh my gawwwd." Mary Margaret squealed. "Whaaaaat does this even….oh, that's naughty. Goodness that's naughty."

* * *

They stopped briefly at Granny's, even though it was Ruby's day off and she claimed hearing people call for more coffee "triggers me like PTSD." Just as they'd finished arranging their coats and started looking over the small menu, Emma heard the clang of Granny's bell and saw Granny turn and heard her make a small "Harrumph" noise as Regina walked in, her head high, her mouth stern, drawing black leather gloves off her hand with small, rapid movements. Henry trailed after her, looking forlorn.

Emma felt frozen in place. Henry's eyes lit up when he saw her and she answered his recognition with a huge smile and little wave.

"Table for two, Madam Mayor?"

Regina's face flickered. Clearly, Emma could tell, she wanted to turn on her heel and get the hell out of there rather than be around Emma during daylight hours with Henry right there. But retreating would be an admission of weakness, a form of defeat, so she cleared her throat and nodded imperiously. "Make that three, Sheriff Graham should be joining us soon. I'd like some Earl Grey, hot this time, Henry will start with a glass of apple juice."

"I hate apple juice." Henry pointed out.

"It's good for you." Regina said in a tone that did not welcome argument, then stood a beat too long as Granny motioned at the table directly next to the booth Mary Margaret, Ruby, and Emma were sharing. Regina pulled her own chair out and sat, perched on the edge of her seat, looking straight ahead and away from the table of women beside her. Emma could have reached over and brushed her neck with her fingers. Not that that even occurred to Emma, or made Emma shift in her seat uncomfortably, or made her open and close her fist just imagining that moment she had ripped open Regina's-

"Why do you keep clenching your first?" Mary Margaret asked.

"Girl is _fidgety_." Ruby said, putting a hand up to block the rest of the diner from view, then dipped a little lower and said in a quiet voice- but certainly not so quiet that Emma could be sure Regina couldn't hear. "Okay, pop quiz Mary Margaret: what are the three unbreakable rules?"

"Um. No kissing on the lips."

"That's the biggie."

"No intimacy with guests."

Ruby snorted.

"And um-"

"They can't touch you, you can touch them.I guess that's technically the biggest rule because it more or less implies the other two."

"Except for regulars, right?" Mary Margaret looked curiously at Emma.

"No, same for everybody." Emma shook her head, willing them to change the conversation. "Ooh, cornbread muffins! I love cornbread muffins, do they have the whole pieces of corn or-"

"Well that _worries me_ Emma-" interrupted Mary Margaret. " Because you came home last night with little finger-tip sized bruises on your upper legs. And a hickey on your-"

"So what'll it be ladies?" chimed Granny, pulling out a notepad and resting a plump elbow on the top of the booth.

They went around the horn giving orders, and Granny looked proud for a moment before addressing the table. "You know, I had some parents with a child who is a student of yours and they were just saying the loveliest things about you. Just what a role model you were to the class and how much your students enjoy the lessons and-"

"She's is truly a great teacher, and a fine role model." Regina's smooth, powerful voice broke in, and the entire booth looked over at the Mayor, who was turning to them at a severe angle with a rather insincere smile spread across her face, her eyes bearing down on meek Mary Margaret. "One of the marks of a great teacher, Storybrooke's education commission has always said, is that they're never off the clock. They're setting an example in good citizenship 24 hours a day. That's why we have such strict morality clauses in place for our teachers- all of which Mary Margaret embodies so well."

"Well, that was apropros of nothing." Emma hissed, daring at last to meet Regina's eyes. The contact, when it came, made her hands shake.

Mary Margaret was staring, shamefaced, down at her hands, which were in her lap.

"I guess I just couldn't keep my admiration to myself today." Regina said smoothly.

Or your hands last night, Emma longed to ad, but restrained herself.

"Morality clause, huh?" Ruby said, leaning back on the booth. "What does that mean?"

"I can see how the syllables would confuse you dear." Regina said, sipping her tea. "It just means teachers, while they're employed, have to maintain a positive image outside the classroom. It would be terribly confusing if a teacher was rumored to be, say, posting scantily-clad shots of herself on her facebook. Or-" Regina laughed, as though the idea was so ridiculous, "go-go dancing or something preposterous like that."

Ruby practically growled. "How about Mayors? Because from what I've seen you're pretty fond of a little go-go dancing yourself."

"What's go-go dancing?" Henry asked, looking to Emma. Emma, shaken, turned to him and tried to keep her face under control.

"Well kid, it's a- style of dancing, like you'd see at a party. Its hard though, so they hire people to do it, like at parties and clubs sometimes."

"She doesn't like parties or clubs." Henry said, cutting his eyes over to Regina, and Regina looked at him, her eyes huge.

"Well, that's because she's busy raising you, kid, and being there for you all the time. That's a full time job, on top of being mayor."

"Please do not talk to my son." Regina snapped, sticking a shoulder in between Emma and Henry without meeting Emma's gaze.

Emma felt her jaw clench. "He's my son too."

"Ms. Swan, I'm afraid I simply don't have the patience to spell out your legal rights right now. Henry, get your coat. We're going to find a place slightly less crowded."

Emma's face burned. She'd been defending Regina, couldn't she tell?

She'd make her pay for this later.


	14. Bounty Hunter By Day

As a grumbling Henry pulled on his coat, Regina's eyes bored into Emma's. A warning? A plea? Gratitude that Emma had covered for her in some way? Probably not gratitude, Emma thought. Regina was almost out the door when Henry came running back, bringing the schoolyard smells of his backpack and fresh cut grass with him as he cuddled up to Emma and whispered in her ear:

"Emma! She's going to Mr. Gold's tonight after she drops me off at Archie's. AND she's been going out a lot at night recently. You have to follow her and find out what's up. It's big! Team Cobra, over and out."

Emma forced herself not to grimace. Playing along with Team Cobra, Archie said, was good for Henry, even if it made her feel like she was encouraging something very close to insanity. While she didn't feel like spying on Regina she wouldn't mind a few words with her off the clock about the way she'd just bullied Mary Margaret. Who did she think she was, paying hand over fist for champagne and lap dances and then threatening Mary Margaret's job with some morality clause BS?

"Guys, I think I have to leave lunch early- but I'll meet up with you back at the apartment and we can go through your haul." Emma winked at Mary Margaret, who looked like she was still lost in a fog of guilt and apprehension, and threw her share of the lunch bill on the table.

* * *

Emma waited at a careful distance until Regina came back down the stairs that led to Archie's office, her face a tense mask, looking pale in its shadowy frame of raven hair. In the daylight, Regina looked strangely girlish, but the momentary impression vanished as she tossed her hair and, with a wilting sneer, clipped down the sidewalk toward her black Benz. Emma stepped out from the cover of a bay window storefront a few feet from Regina's car, and Regina scowled.

"Loitering is not allowed anywhere in Storybrooke, Ms. Swan."

"Cut the crap for a second, Regina, I want to talk to you."

"Too bad, Ms. Swan." Regina was putting the key in her car door, averting her gaze.

"Regina, hello, your contract doesn't apply here. I need to talk to you about-"

Uh oh. Regina's eyes met hers and they were burning with an unbearable amount of rage. Her face contorted, her lips a red snarl, and she moved toward Emma with the speedy grace of a snake striking, her whisper a deep rasp that was terrible to hear.

"_Contract?_ The contract doesn't apply _at all_ anymore since you clearly _violated its terms_ and told Ruby my identity. _Big mistake, Ms. Swan._ If I were you I'd get out of Storybrooke as fast as that pile of yellow scrap metal can go."

Emma, as was always her instinct, matched Regina's escalating temper with a blast of righteous rage, sidling closer to Regina, her eyes huge. "You are _out of your mind_ if you think I've told Ruby _anything_. _I haven't told anyone about us_. She saw you at Underland the first two times you came to see us dance, or collect bribes or whatever the hell you were doing before we—you really think I'd-" you really think I'd betray you? She wanted to say, but it came out as, "-I'd risk this getting back to Henry?"

Regina paused a beat, the two women hovering so close to each other they could hear the other breathe. Emma saw one of her own long blonde curls float on a gust of wind and almost touch Regina's coat. She had chalked up a lot of the heat that filled her in Underland to the sexy, hormone-soaked atmosphere. Yet here, where it was just the two of them, standing in the pearly gray afternoon on the empty, perpetually gloomy Storybrooke street, Emma could feel her heart racing with an urgency to get into the head of the woman across from her, and an equal urgency to feel her under her hands, to smell her perfume.

Regina stepped back. "No. I guess you wouldn't... I'll grant that its possible Ruby saw me in Underland before our arrangement. Of course it's equally possible you're laughing with her behind my back every night while you pocket my money. That would be a clear violation of our contract, Ms. Swan."

"There's nothing funny about what we're doing." Emma muttered. "It might be the most stupid mistake I've ever made in my life but I'll keep making it as long as you let me."

"And what mistake, exactly, are you talking about?" Regina said irritably, gazing down the street as though they were discussing the weather, keeping a casual distance between them. "Taking your clothes off or taking my money?"

"Yeah, lets put it that way: taking your money." Emma snapped, embarrassed by what she had been about to say. "Speaking of which, its incredibly hypocritical for you to give me a small fortune to – to- shake my boobs in your face and then threaten to fire Mary Margaret just because she wants to dance. She's a fantastic teacher."

"So Mary Margaret DOES want to strip?" Regina's face suddenly glowed with a genuine smile, and Emma could feel her mood shift, cruel delight suddenly taking root. "I always knew that girl was a dirty little slut."

"WOW...Dirty little slut, huh?" Emma crossed her arms to keep from grabbing Regina's lapels and slammingher against the Benz and pressing into her until they both were bruised. "Wow. Like, wow. You are the most impossible, awful, hypocritical bitch I've ever come across-"

"Are you referring to when you came across my lap last night?" Regina's voice dropped a little lower and she leaned toward Emma then dipped back as Emma's cheeks turned bright red. "I thought so." Regina said triumphantly.

"Go to hell." Emma cried, clenching her fists as Regina disappeared into her car. Regina rolled down her window.

"See you there tonight." Regina said coolly. "And by the way, you might re-read your contract, because if you _ever_ talk about _anything _we do at Underland during daylight hours again... Henry and everyone who reads the Storybrooke Mirror will know all about you and Mary Margaret's extracurricular activities."

* * *

Emma found herself parked outside of Mr. Gold's an hour later, still shaking. Regina was _seriously _misogynistic, weirdly hateful to Mary Margaret who she barely even knew, and capable of making Emma practically cream herself on the street just by whispering the word come. Emma leaned her forehead on the wheel of her bug and squeezed her eyes shut, listing off her options mentally while waiting for Regina:

Continue tonight as though nothing had happened, proving that she was as much of Regina's stooge as Graham.

Confront Regina again and risk pushing Regina into revealing everything to Henry.

Quit Underland and look once more for a real job until her savings ran out…and risk losing access to Henry and-let's be real- access to Regina.

The options were chasing each other in a weary circle in Emma's mind until she noticed Regina's car had pulled up to Mr. Gold's shop. She slunched down in the car seat and gripped the small cheap baby monitor she'd picked up at a drug store after her confrontation with Regina. She had gone into Mr. Gold's shop moments earlier and planted the other monitor amongst his trinkets while he ducked into the back room to look for a tea set, at her request. With the press of a button, she could turn on the small white monitor radio in her hot little hands, and dig a little deeper into Regina's dealings.

She really didn't want to use her bounty hunter tricks to eavesdrop on Regina. "But then again, all's fair in love and war." Emma said into the silence of her car, and flicked the on switch.


	15. Mary-Margaret's Wardrobe

The monitor crackled with the tinkling sound of the shop's doorbell as Regina disappeared behind the glass front of 's pawnshop.

"Well well, Madam Mayor. What an honor. And are we buying or selling today?"

"I get all my knick knacks from Design Within Reach, thanks. Antiques aren't exactly my taste."

"Those at peace with the past can appreciate its relics, so I can appreciate why my story would make you uneasy, dear. So are you selling?"

"In a manner of speaking…I have a story book that belongs to my son Henry. The illustrations leave a little to be desired but Henry is strangely attached to it. There is one story that's rather intriguing about a figure named Rumplestiltskin. Perhaps you've heard of him?"

Emma was at first merely enraged that Regina was even considering selling Henry's book, which figured so prominently in the kid's mental landscape. Luckily it was hidden safely under her bed at Mary Margaret's…which made it even weirder Regina was talking about it now. And the unease between the two people talking came across even in the tinny tones of the baby monitor. It was like they were having a tense discussion about two different religions or major world politics, not talking about children's stories.

"A handsome and heroic soul, as I recall."

"Actually no: He was a lizard-skinned freak who repelled everyone who saw him…according to this story book. All except one particularly short-sighted princess he kidnapped. In the story, they…his ugliness started to fade away after they kissed."

Emma stared at the baby monitor. Was it broken? The silence was profound, but static was still evident.

"I assume because his powers faded away as well. True Love's kiss would have broken the curse that gave him all his power, so somehow it counteracted it or denied it or…somehow he _rejected_ true love. " Regina's voice was hoarse. "How?"

Mr. Gold laughed bitterly after this statement. "That's hardly a lesson I'd expect you to need."

"How, Mr. Gold?"

"Perhaps you should write the author. I'm sure I don't know."

"Guess." Her voice was hard. "How did he reject True Love?"

"I'm closing." Mr. Gold snapped. "So if you don't mind, dear, I'll need you to leave….please."

Emma watched Regina walk out of the store into the darkness of evening, whispering to herself, "_Why_ are you _such a weirdo_?" and then realizing she didn't know which of them she was referring to.

* * *

Emma walked into the living room and gave Ruby and Mary-Margaret an apologetic smile.

"Guys, I'm so sorry I bailed earlier…"

"Relax, we've been having a great time." Ruby handed her a large daiquiri glass.

"Emma, Ruby knows how to make sooo many drinks. It's like all of a sudden our blender is the coolest thing in the apartment." Mary Margaret hiccupped, topping off her own glass with a lime-green frozen sludge. "Also, if you want anything from my haul today to wear tonight, like, feel free. I'll never wear any of this stuff." Mary Margaret gestured at the bags slung onto the couch. "I mean…I love hearing you guy's stories but…I shouldn't have tried to get involved. There's just too much at risk if I lose my job."

"That stupid school. Why do teachers have to have morality clauses anyway? That's an infringement of your rights. You should all strike! Strike until they let you re-negotiate your terms."

A strike? Emma's face suddenly lit up. "Actually—Mary Margaret, I'd actually love to borrow some of your clothes tonight. But not the new ones…"

"School girl look? That's tried and true." Nodded Rubby.

"I'm sure it is…but I have something slightly different in mind."

* * *

Regina crossed her arms when Emma came in the champagne that room number one, scowling at the woman in front of her.

Emma wore a billowing navy blue sweater over a high-waisted A-line denim skirt that stopped at her ankles. Beneath that were thick gray stockings. A white lacy collar peeked out over her sweater. Her hair was done up in a knot behind her make up free face and her glasses were on.

The music started up: Mary Margaret's favorite, Taylor Swift. Regina openly sneered.

Emma clasped her hands behind her back and tapped one foot. Regina sat, visibly suppressing a smile.

"Ha ha ha. What's the meaning of this, Princess?" she snapped.

Emma made a "key locking my lips" gesture and then threw away an invisible key.

"Permission to speak." Regina said icily.

Emma kept tapping her toe.

"This is NOT what I'm paying you for."

Emma shrugged.

"Do you want me to fire you? Is that it?" Regina slowly sat back, wheels visibly turning behind her eyes. It was moments like these Emma felt slightly unworthy of the regard those dark pools seemed to hold her in, when she saw the power of Regina's mind flash below their surface like some inestimably deadly shark . "Is this your clever little way of getting out of the contract without violating any of its rules?"

Emma said nothing, only tapped her toe.

"Permission to speak!" Regina snapped. "Or do you want me to go over there and rip the clothes right off you?"

"You don't respect me, Regina." Emma said after a long beat. Regina said nothing, so she continued. "Maybe it's because you think what I do is shameful. Well, I don't see any shame in what I do. I like to dance. Heck, I like dancing for you…I don't know why, but I do." she was saying too much. Her face felt hot. She should have skipped that last daiquiri. "But not if you're looking down on me. So tonight we're on the same level. Whatever you take off, I'll take off. If you take off nothing, we can just stand here and enjoy Mary Margaret's favorite play list. That's cool too. Easy money for me and perfectly cool according to your contract."

She had read all the fine print on the contract. This, technically didn't violate any of the rules. She was dancing, after all- even if it was just tapping her toe.

"Permission to speak _revoked_." Regina snapped, standing, and marched out of the room.

* * *

Emma waved to Henry from across the school yard. He ran toward her, his cheeks growing pink.

"So what did you find out?!" he asked, his small hand fitting naturally into hers, a habit Emma was still getting used to.

"Well…" she wondered if she should share Regina's mentioning the book in the pawn shop. It certainly seemed like it would hit a lot of Henry's delusional triggers. "She seemed to be asking him for relationship advice."

"Relationships?" Henry mused on the word, as though it couldn't exist in the same thought with his adoptive mother. "Maybe she doesn't know how to have one?"

"You might be onto something there, kid." Emma tousled his hair.

* * *

The next night, Regina actually laughed when she walked in.

"Where the hell did you even FIND overalls?" Regina snapped.

"I thought they went nicely with the turtleneck sweater." Emma said, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "But you know, I got some pretty cool stuff on underneath the sweater."

"Oh?" Regina stared at the ground, the sound coming almost unwillingly out of her. "Like what?"


	16. Don't Break the Spell

"I know one way to find out." Emma smiled broadly, tucking her thumbs underneath her overall straps and sliding down so they hovered just over her (very concealed) breasts. "Seems a shame to drive all the way down here just to bicker with me."

"Not to mention you've managed to find the one song more grating than Taylor Swift." Regina snapped. "Call Me Maybe?"

Emma shrugged her shoulders. "I think it's catchy."

Regina silently fumed, and Emma continued."… So we're going to hang out silently in this room, wearing way too many clothes all night? Can't imagine its very fun for you, but-"

Regina interrupted her. "Do you have any cameras on you?"

Emma paused, and her tone moved from joking to gentle. "No. I promise. This is not about trapping you, Regina."

Regina stood up from the chair and very carefully unbuttoned the blouse she had on. Emma couldn't believe what she was seeing – the almost shy, fumbling movements of Regina's hands (were they SHAKING?) and then the black silk pulling away to reveal the top of a back slip above her pencil skirt. Her pulse was thudding in her ears. Regina looked Emma dead in the eye, reached her arm out with the black blouse dangling from one finger, and let it fall to the floor.

Emma unbuckled one overall strap and flipped it over her shoulder.

"Come ON." Regina growled.

"You've got more on than I do." Emma said.

"Oh really?" Regina smirked and removed an earring, then let that fall on the shirt.

Emma took off her glasses and undid her pony tail.

"You have a ridiculous amount of hair." Regina snapped.

"I'd been thinking of cutting it."

"Don't." the word was definitely a command.

"I think your hair is pretty too." Emma said, raising an eyebrow. "And I'm waiting. And no more earrings."

Regina's toned arms disappeared behindher back and Emma heard the long pull of a zipper. Her skirt fell to the floor and Regina stepped out of it, kicking it aside. The slip hung below her knees.

Emma unbuckled the other strap, and her overalls fell to the ground. Underneath her overalls were black sheer garters, like a pin up girl's. Regina took a long, appreciative glance and then pulled her slip over her head.

Emma's mouth went dry at the sight of Regina in her black bra and black panties. She was wearing thigh high garters stockings- albeit more modern, practical ones- as well.

"Twinsies." Emma managed with a squeak. Regina put her hand on her hips and looked at Emma expectantly. How was it that Regina seemed even more imperial undressed? Even more intimidating? Every fiber of her body seemed to pull Emma toward her. Emma took a step closer and pulled off her turtleneck sweater, revealing a black satin corset tied with lacy garters to the stockings. Regina gasped and took a step closer, her hands racing to unhook her bra. As it fell to the floor, she looked up at Emma, her glance as naked and vulnerable as her unbearably perfect torso.

"I do like this one lyric." Emma managed, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "Before you came into my life, I missed you so bad…"

"_Get over here_." Regina commanded.

Emma took a step closer.

Regina took a step towards her.

They were nose to nose.

"I'm about to do something that's against the rules." Regina said, her voice a silky, barely-controlled monotone that gave Emma goosebumps.

"And what's that?"

"I'm going to bang the living hell out of you right now."

* * *

Later Emma would never know how long it lasted, no matter how many times she went over it in her mind in the years that followed. One image, of Regina's face so close to hers as she gasped Emma's name- Emma's real name- would reappear in dreams, waking and asleep, for the rest of her life. And yet somehow, Regina always managed to twist her head or duck away so that they never kissed . Emma, caught in a pang of passion so extreme she really lost all sense and honestly tried to hold Regina's face and kiss her on the lips, felt Regina pull back for the first time, and place a restraining finger on her mouth.

"Don't break the spell." she whispered, in a voice that was meant to be teasing but stabbed at Emma's heart.

"So its all a fantasy, right ?" Emma mumbled, but it was a perfect enough fantasy that she'd take it.

* * *

Ruby shook her head at the wheel as they flew through the night.

"This is bad Emma, this is _bad_."

"I know." Emma's hands raked through her hair, but then she laughed. "How can you tell?"

"Girl, you look _f-cked_. In the best way but, whoooooooooooo."

Emma laughed, kneading her eyes with her fingers. "Okay, so I broke a rule. So sue me."

"Not _a_ rule, THE rule!.Emma professionally I don't approve of sex for money, I really don't but you went one step further and _fell in love_ with this big bad regular, didn't you?"

Ruby put a cigarette between her red-painted lips and expertly lit it with one hand, steering with the other, her eyes flitting so often between Emma's face and the road Emma figured she was driving from memory.

"No." Emma said, crossing her arms.

"Well I know damn sure you didn't just do this for the money. Did he give you extra money?"

"I don't know I mean, I didn't even think about it-"

"And you say you're not in love.."

"I can't." Emma put her head in her hands. "I just…ugh, I need to just get back there. I can't sleep tonight."

"Whoa chill, chill." Ruby laughed. "Did your phone just go off?"

Emma pulled the phone out of her pocket and felt her heart sink. "Oh, its Mary Margaret. She says she's still up and we should all hang out- look Ruby I can't, I just- I can't…I need to like…could you drop me by my car?"

Ruby shook herhead. "Get a night's sleep first, okay? It's a small town, I know it's tempting to go to someone's house and make a scene but just get a grip. If your regular wanted to be with you for real, they would be. There's a reason they don't meet you at their house, do you get what I'm trying to say to you? Just trust me Emma. You can't trust your instincts right now."

"Okay." Emma breathed. "Okay."

Her phone went off again. She looked down. It was Regina's number.

_This was the mistake you wanted to make? _

Emma gasped and typed back, _God help me, yes._

She waited, staring at her phone, willing it to answer her back. There was the faint chime and the replying text came back:

_I can't see you again. Whatever this is ends now._


	17. Why So Sad, Darling?

Emma got out of the car while it was practically still in motion. Ruby cruised beside her, yelling form the driver's wheel and calling Mary Margaret down to the street.

"YOUR ROOMMATE IS GOING INTO CRAZY BITCH MODE!" Ruby yelled, leaning on the horn. "THIS IS NOT A DRILL. EMMA IS IN CRAZY BITCH MODE!"

"Ruby STOP." Emma was on her last nerve, she tried to take a deep breath. "Look, I'm an adult, I haven't had anything to drink. Don't wake the whole neighborhood, okay? I'm just going to take a little drive to settle my mind."

"You're going to go straight over to his house and bawl him out for ending the party the moment he got your cookies, and you know it!"

"My _cookies_?!" Emma said wearily. "Look Ruby, honestly, I just need a little time alone. I would be no fun at a sleepover and frankly I don-t-" her chin trembled. "I can't cry in front of people and I just need to sort of do that right now."

Ruby slowly backed up off the horn, and looked at her with understanding. She pulled in by the curb and got out and gave Emma a long hug.

"Okay. Don't speed."

"You should talk." Emma said, giving her a strained smile.

As soon as Ruby disappeared into Mary Margaret's stairwell, Emma got in the tracker and turned the wheel toward Regina's house.

But she didn't cry. Emma didn't cry when she was hurt and that was just what this was. It felt like a physical pain. It literally felt like Regina had dug into the weakest part of her and pulled out her heart and crushed it. And worst of all, Regina had gotten her to admit it first- to admit she wanted her. The only response could be rage. She couldn't go in yelling, Henry would hear. That would scar him for life,waking up his birth mom yelling: hey, you screwed me and then dumped me, not that we were dating. What the hell is your problem? Also, here's your thousands of dollars back. Ugh, it was all such a mess.

Her engine had revved up and she'd forgotten the tape (yes, the tape) she had still in there, a gritty and garbled Radiohead mixtape that was now playing Fake Plastic Trees at her and making her want to drive straight into a real big tree.

"You're used to this." She told herself, hitting the eject button hard. Love had always been a fantasy. She was willing to accept it was just a fantasy, a dream, but she was not willing to wake up yet and how DARE Regina make that call.. She wanted to kick down the door and yell at Regina, but she'd be cool about. She'd call her down to the front door, make her take a walk down the street and THEN scream and shout. Tell her what a lousy, manipulative, psycho, TOXIC person she was.

She slowed down as she reached the tall hedges by the house, her heart in her throat, her mind dizzy as though she was drunk. She got out into the cold of night and before she slammed the bug's door shut, she heard it- the sound of sobbing. Someone in the front yard was definitely sobbing.

Emma walked to the edge of the tall dark hedges that flanked the sidewalk up to Regina's porch and peered through the darkness. Regina was sitting on the last step, as far out of the house she could get without sitting on the sidewalk, dressed carelessly in a robe, her feet bare. She must have been afraid Henry would hear her, because she had a pillow she was pushing her face into, and sobbing and sobbing and sobbing like her heart would break.

Emma couldn't even breathe. She turned, with the smallest steps she could, and walked back to her car, longing to race to Regina's side, but knowing the woman would shatter under her hands like glass if she found out anyone had seen her so weak.

* * *

Emma ended up driving around all of Storybrooke in those few hours before sun up, once again filing her mental options. She ended up at the beach, and on the sort of whim she thought she'd abandoned when she left high school, shucked off her shoes and walked through the rocky sand to the water.

In the early rays of dawn, she saw a figure standing ankle deep in the rising tide platform heels dangling from her fingers, long red hair just starting to glow in the rising sun, a man's oversize large boating jacket draped on her shoulders, so long on her small frame it fell well below her hips. Emma walked over to Shelley, feeling weirdly that she wouldn't mind the company.

Shelley looked over her shoulder almost as though she'd been expecting Emma, and gave her a half smile. "Hey Princess."

"Hey." Emma looked out at the water. "Did you just get done with your shift?"

"No, I but I just got done with my regular." Shelley motioned to a string of beach houses. "He just told me he's getting engaged. Wish he'd said it before we got to his house instead of after." Shelley pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and a lighter. "Ah well."

"I thought singers couldn't smoke." Emma said, hitting Shelley lightly with her elbow.

"Good thing I'm not a singer." Shelley said, her eyes unblinking.

"I'm sorry about Derek." Emma said.

"And what happened with your big bad mystery man?"

"Mystery woman." Emma said. "My regular's a she."

"That's cool." Shelley said, sighing out a plume of smoke. "So you fell in love with her?"

"Yeah." Emma said.

"People try to tell you it's so wonderful to love someone, even if you get hurt." Shelley still had her eyes locked on the waves. "Love is nothing but hurt. You hurt when you're not with them, you hurt when they're unhappy, you hurt when they're happy with someone else. Best case scenario, you end up together for LIFE: one of you DIES. And the other one dies because it hurts so bad. I hate it. I wish I could feel anything else. I wish I could be anything but me."

Emma shrugged. "I don't know. I think this is my first time being in love, to be honest, and…and it hurts like hell but…" she shook her head. "I feel like my soul got bigger, you know? I don't know. I'm a dumb ass."

Shelley nodded, then let out a joyless laugh. "You're a dumbass? I was getting ready to walk into the sea."

Emma put an arm around her. "Don't do that." Emma whispered. "Or you won't find out how your story really ends."

* * *

_FREE BREAKFAST GRANNYS !?_

Ah Ruby. Emma got the text after she'd dropped Shelley off at her house- a small walk up near the cannery she was sharing with a teen runaway with ridiculously long hair. She gave Shelley her number and told her to call her if she needed anything (like a ride back to her car) but Shelley promised her all she needed was a good playlist and some sleep.

As she steered past Mr. Gold's shop, the baby monitor in her passenger footwell suddenly crackled to life. "Let's hear it for long lasting batteries!" Emma laughed, swerving a little as she reached to turn it off. But then her hand stilled. She would recognize that voice anywhere.

"Just tell me, Gold." Regina said. "So help me God, whatever it costs I'll pay it."


	18. Texts

"Ah, you want the one thing I cannot procure for you my dear." The crackling made him almost inaudible. "I've heard it said True Love can break any curse. So I wouldn't bother looking for a curse to break True Love, dear. You might as well ask me for a piece of wood that can put out a fire. "

The light on the monitor flickered. Let's hear it for long-lasting batteries, Emma thought grouchily.

"You must know something. I know you know something Gold. Here's your chance, Gold"

"My advice…" continued Mr. Gold, "Is that time heals all wounds and we certainly have all the time in the world here in dear old Storybrooke…"

"I need an answer. " a slamming sound broke through Regina's strained voice ,as though she was pounding on Mr Gold's counter. "Tell me how you turned her away, how you turned it off! _I can't live like this_-Now that I know what it is _how am I supposed to live without it_-"

The baby monitor trailed off. Emma flicked it on and off. "No no nononononono!" Emma whispered.

She looked at the storefront. Besides all that corny jibber jabber about fairy tale characters, one thing was making Emma's heart beat in her chest furiously. Deep down an ember of belief glowed that Regina was asking advice about her.

* * *

"I'm going up tonight." Mary Margaret whispered. It was a crowded Saturday morning at Granny's and Emma was starting to feel her sleepless night. She'd take off soon (after she finished the free pancakes Ruby had had waiting for her) shower and sleep like hell.

"Say what?"

"Ruby said we would all dance together- you and me and her- so I could get through my first time!"

"But what about your morality clause thing?" Emma asked, smiling. And my contract? Except that's canceled? She thought.

"Oh, I've got that covered: we're going to take _everything off_ but these." Mary Margaret pulled a black domino mask halfway out of her purse. "Me and Ruby got you one two."

"Well, that's pretty smart, but I don't know many other ladies in Storybrooke with your haircut."

"Wigs." Mary Margaret said evenly. "I got us all pink wigs. Like Natalie Portman in 'Closer'!"

"Let me just tell you right now…real life stripping? Nothing like Closer."

"No Craig Daniels?"

"Nope, and also just not that much room. There's always drinks everywhere or sticky stuff on the bar and…well, you'll see."

"Yes, yes I will!" Mary Margaret pumped her fist. "I'm sick of just staying home all the time, you know? What's the point of never taking risks and trying new things? I might as well just seal myself up in a coffin, you know? And if you guys go up with me- you know. I think it'll be really fun."

"It'll be amazing." Emma said, putting her hand over Mary Margaret's as Ruby hurried over to their table. She was waitressing today and furious about it.

"You will not _believe_ how much Kathryn just chewed me out for bringing her pancakes instead of waffles. Like keep your pants on, you'll get you your damn carbs." Ruby adusted her short shorts. "Ugh. How are you Emma?" she moved closer to the booth. "Did you burn down a house?"

"No. Honestly I think I'm alright." Emma smiled at her. "I guess we're all hitting the stage tonight?"

"Yes, we're going to _truly_ make it rain. It;s going to be a man monsoon in there. The three of us are going to have so much money they'll have to just shut down Storybrooke bank." She winked at Mary margaret. "You picked our song yet?"

Mary Margaret looked coy. "it's a surprise."

Ruby and Emma exchanged a glance. "Taylor Swift, right?" Ruby said.

"Damn." Mary Margaret looked thwarted. "Okay, I'll have to think of something else. It will be a surprise."

* * *

Emma's phone went off while she was curling her hair at her dresser.

_Ms Swan: Ursula will close out the contract tomorrow and pay the rest of what I owe you. No need to go in tonight, I will not be there._

Emma laughed out loud while typing back:

_Oh I don't need 2 I want 2. Have a nice nite doing whtvr the hell it is u do._

Her phone started chiming like crazy.

_I FORBID it Emma_

_Do you want those pictures in the papers_

_You dance for no one but me_

Emma rolled her eyes and tapped back,

_Who sayd I was dancing? Mebbe I just want to drink and hook up- wat do you care?_

A long pause, then,

_You're a terrible typist._

Emma rolled her eyes and threw the phone aside, but it started chiming wildly again.

_This will not do Ms Swan_

_I am not joking, do not disobey me_

_So you just hook up with people do you? _

_I can't say I'm surprised given your track record_

_Answer these texts at once_

_Hello? Are you there?_

Emma grimaced and was about to power the phone down when it went off in her hands. She sent it to voicemail and it started ringing again.

"Well hello." Emma said sweetly. "Why, is this Madam Mayor Mills?"

"Listen to me, Ms Swan, so help me you will _not_ scar Henry by hooking up with 'people' willy nilly at topless bars off the clock. I'm calling Ursula right now, so you can just save yourself the drive-"

"_Shut up, Regina_." Emma's voice became icy. "You said 'whatever this was between us' and I'm telling you now: think about it for a second before you start pushing me away. If you want to throw away a lot of hot sex that's your business. However, don't think for a _moment_ that because you like playing the self-denial game you have me fooled. I'll be at Underland tonight and if that bothers you maybe sit down and think about _why_, and if you want to show up and be an adult and actually see if there's something there between us that doesn't involve fake names and champagne rooms and contracts, I'll be waiting. And if you don't come tonight, then don't worry about what I'm doing, because whatever it is it won't involve you."

She clicked the phone off and powered it down, her heart thudding in her chest.

She hadn't meant to, but it occurred to her she had just sort of asked Regina on a date


	19. I Didn't Sell You My Soul

Mary Margaret was drumming her hands on the back of Ruby's back seat, right in between Ruby and Emma's heads. She was bopping around her head and singing along at the top of her lungs to the song filling the car:

"_Might last a day yeah MINE IS FOREEEEEVVVVEEERRRR!"_

"I'm guessing you got her into Hole?" Ruby whispered to Emma sarcastically.

"She had Violet on a loop while we got ready."

"GO ON TAKE EVERYTHING TAKE EVERYTHING I WANT YOU TO!"

The pink wig on Mary Margaret's head was thrashing around in the back, and she wore Emma's red leather jacket, which swallowed her small frame. Emma had to admit, the wig and thick eyeliner totally transformed her roommate into someone very different- and apparently quite angry. She appreciated Mary-Margaret's need to conquer her first-night nerves with a little bravado. But the scream-singing wasn't helping the mounting sense of anxiety that was making Emma's heart race in starts.

If Regina wasn't there?

"So what are we dancing to tonight Mary Margs?" Ruby called over the music. "I hope not Courtney because I love her but she does not go over well with customers."

"Oh, you'll see!"

"Okay…" Ruby gave Emma a significant look."You got a name picked out?"

"Well, I was thinking we should we just do a group name? Since we're all going up together in our wigs and our little black masks?" Mary Margaret put her own black mask over her eyes and gave them a dazzling smile in the rearview mirror.

"How about the Bone Rangers?" Emma suggested.

Ruby swerved, she was laughing so hard, and they shot deeper into the dark woods.

* * *

The locker room was full of dancers again. Emma remembered the heightened excitement she had felt at this time last Saturday. The first night she and Regina began their crazy, effed up contract. What a difference a week made: her heart fell heavy, she could hear her pulse in her ears, she had to consciously hold back depression from flooding her face . The metallic ring of the lockers opening and shutting, the flutter of the other girls' laughter, the heavy smell of perfume, it all came to her as though through some filter, as unreal as projected images in a dim room. She could see Mary Margaret, almost through a haze, taking it all in, trying to put on her "costume" as she called it while keeping most of her clothes on, looking decidedly queasy and terrified. She looked across the room and met Shelley's eyes and they gave each other a sad half smile.

In the same boat, she thought, pulling her blouse off.

Ruby was tying back her hair in the mirror and putting on her hot pink wig, adjusting the short straight pink bangs over her Lone Ranger mask. It looked fantastic on her, and she caught Emma looking and blew her a joking kiss.

Suddenly Ursula's harsh voice floated up from the hallway that connected the locker room with the stage.

"Princess?! Is Princess in here?!"

Emma gulped as the dancers scattered as Ursula elbowed her way into the room, Flotsam and Jetsam flanking her.

"Princess, you need to go home. Your VIP isn't coming. They told me to call you and tell you not to go out on the floor."

Emma shrugged. "So? If she's not coming how will she even know if I go out on the floor?."

"I don't know and I don't care. I have my orders Princess."

"That's Bull, Ursula." Emma shot back angrily. "It's not her choice. I don't belong to her." She could tell every time she used a female pronoun Ursula got more nervous. The chatter had died down around them and the girls were silently listening to the struggle.

"She wasn't going to go up as Princess, she was just going to dance with me and- and-" Ruby looked over at Mary-Margaret- "and um, Shortcake over there anyway."

"Shortcake?" Ursula looked at Mary Margaret, her eyebrows flying up.

"Shortcake. That's me." Mary Margaret managed, a flicker of surprise passing over her face. "Hi!" She managed a small wave, clutching her shirt closed with one hand. She was in Emma's platform stripper shoes, about a size too big for her.

Ursual pinched between her eyebrows for a moment. "Ruby, I see ALL new dancers first, you know that. As for you, Princess you need to clean out your locker and go. Flotsam and Jetsam will see you out."

There was a terrified murmuring amongst the other dancers at this. They'd clearly never seen a worker escorted out of Underland.

"That's not fair." Shelley's voice rose from the back of the room. "Princess has the right to choose her customers."

The other girls started nodding in agreement, glaring back at Ursula. "That's RIGHT." "MmHmm." "Customers can't fire us!"

"If Princess dances her VIP could very well close this place down and then no one gets a choice." Ursula snapped, her eyes practically popping out of her head. "I can't believe I'm actually arguing with you sniveling little shrimps! Underland, its bar, and its parking area are _my dominion_!"

"Well then I'm not going to dance either." Shelley's voice rang out, clear and sweet and strong, making the other dancers turn around.

Ursula's face paled and she wheeled around at the girl, furious. "Oh? And how do you expect to pay off what you owe me, Shelley?"

"I'll find another way." Shelley said, already pulling on a pink sweatshirt, shrugging. "I only owe you money, you know. I didn't sell you my soul, Ursula. I'll find a way to pay you back but I'm done with Underland. I'm worth more than this."

The locker room broke into spontaneous applause as Ursula's face grew dark.

"Very well. The rest of you dancers can look forward to a busier night."

"I'm not going to dance either." Came a voice from the back. Fey crossed her arms. "I can't go up unless I'm thinking happy thoughts and this whole situation is seriously bumming me out."

"Yeah." Ruby said. "Me neither."

The girls started chorusing, all of them turning to their lockers. Emma could practically see the night's til shrinking behind Ursula's eyes. Her red talons gripped at the air then tore through her shock of white hair, snarling at them silently, watching all fifteen dancers start to silently put their clothes back on.

"Imbeciles! Fools! It's a _Saturday nig_ht, there's a _full house_ out there just waiting for the first stage to open, and I just paid my business license, ladies. The money is waiting to be had! Surely one of you is willing to make a deal with me?!" the dancers turned away as she approached them. "Shortcake?" Ursula squeaked.

"Sorry, but I go where the Bone Rangers go." Mary Margaret said, looking a little relieved as she stepped into her pants.

Ursula was practically shaking with rage as the first of the dancers filed past her, making a point to walk through the club room and let the guys know there'd be no dancing tonight. Disappointed customers could be heard out on the floor greeting the casually dressed dancers making their way out the door with cries of "Whaaat?" and "Booo!"

Shelley squeezed Emma's hand before she went out, and shoved Ursula a little with her shoulder as she headed for the door.

* * *

The parking lot was packed with dancers in jackets and jeans, laughing to each other.

"We are baaaad bitches!" Al said, the words strangely polished by her hoity toity British accent.

"Saturday night off for once. Should we go somewhere fun?" Fey asked, knitting her hands under her chin.

"I would have said Underland was the most fun place in town. Until we left." Ruby smirked, and got a high-five from Jade, a girl with a jeweled headband and harem pants on.

Mary Margaret looked like she was in seventh heaven- one of the girls, yet still fully clothed, as the group leaned up against their cars and tried to come up with a fun plan.

Emma didn't know how to tell Ruby she just wanted to go home, crawl under the covers, and cry herself to sleep. She kicked one of the low rider's tires absently, feeling at once warmed by the show of solidarity and also sort of like she was about to die from being stood up by Regina.

And that's when she saw, in the shadows at the edge of the parking lot, Regina's Benz.

And Regina put her hand out of the window and crooked her finger at Emma, her gaze steady.

Emma, unable to deny her, walked over to the car.


	20. The Difference A Day Makes

Regina opened the door a little so Emma could slide in the passenger seat. Before she stepped inside, Emma waved to Ruby and held her phone up. "I'll call you later!" she called. Ruby cocked her head at the sight of the car and Emma made a desperate "TRUST ME, ALL OKAY" face that luckily Ruby seemed to respect. When Emma got in the car, Regina was covering the side of her face with her hand.

"Um, I'm sorry, are you embarrassed to be seen with me?"

"No Ms. Swan, I just hate reinforcing the old cliché of a politician brought down by a sex scandal."

"A sex scandal? You wish."

Regina raised an eyebrow. "So I take it Ursula told you your job is over?"

"Actually, it's more like her club is over. All the other dancers walked out with me." Emma crossed her arms and looked at Regina. "Looks like we all had one thing in common."

_"_Herpes?" Regina snapped.

Emma bristled. "No, Regina, a sense of self worth.…And a hatred for most of the customers."

Regina glared at her while her hands squeezed the steering wheel, gripping it so tight Emma thought her black leather gloves would snap.

"Why didn't you just meet me in there?" Emma asked, leaning her head back on the headrest. "Why do you have to play these little mind games with me? And don't say you're trying to get me out of Henry's life, because if it was really about Henry you wouldn't have let me f-ck you."

Regina's eyes closed at the words as though deflecting them. "Can we move this conversation somewhere a little more private? "

Emma reached for the door handle as though about to get out of the car.

"Please, Ms Swan. I want to talk. I want to…" she trailed off, clenching and unclenching her jaw, her eyes burning into Emma's.

"Why do we have to have this conversation somewhere else, Regina? Because you're going to take more pictures of me? Or threaten me? Or drop me off at the town line? Or turn me over the Sheriff or-"

"I simply want to feel free to express myself outside the public eye." Regina interrupted her. "If you don't trust me to convey you to a place of safety, YOU can drive."

"Fine." Emma said, sitting up and unbuckling her seat belt. "Let's switch seats."

Regina looked absolutely furious but unfastened her seatbelt and indicated to Emma to get out and go around to the driver's side while she slid into the passenger seat. Emma felt deliriously gratified by the small gesture, even if Regina kept her face carefully angled away from the still-full parking lot.

"There's a cabin of mine in the woods where we can talk without disturbing Henry." Regina said. "I was able to go up and unshutter it after I got off the phone with you, so it might be a little chilly but if we lay a fire it should soon be-"

"A cabin!?" Emma looked at her for a moment. "We need a whole cabin just to talk?"

Regina snarled at Emma, her eyes narrowing. "Has it ever occurred to you, Ms Swan, that the benefit of being with someone who constantly 'schemes' is that once in a while they 'scheme' a nice little surprise for you and if you stopped _questioning me_ every five minutes you might just-"

"'Being with'?" Emma whispered. She felt her heart kick off in her chest as though the key to the ignition had jump started her and not the engine. "Am I…are we 'being with' each other now? Or is 'whatever this is' between us-"

"Oh how you do love to latch onto phrases." Regina put her head in her gloved hands. "Ms Swan-"

"Emma." Emma said, her voice low.

"_Emma_." Regina sighed. "Every instinct I have tells me I should run you out of town, pull some strings and get a restraining order against you and make sure I never see you again. I wake up every day in a _rage_ at the thought of your existence."

Emma's chest was heaving, her hands already clenched into fists.

"And yet…" Regina's head tilted back onto the headrest, her jaw clenched, and her eyes squeezed shut, but then she looked straight into Emma's eyes. " And yet somehow I've spent the last week paying to look at you, I've risked my career associating with Ursula to get you out of Underland, and you're currently at the steering wheel of my Benz. _My Benz, Emma_. Now why do you think that is ?"

Emma looked at her blankly. "I don't know." She whispered.

"It's because I want you so badly if you don' t get us out of here right now I will rip those cheap clothes off your ridiculous body and have you on the gravel of this parking lot."

"Okay. So do we take a left or right out of here?" Emma said, shifting the car into drive.

* * *

From the outside the cabin was very rustic, but once inside Regina's modern tastes prevailed, with surprisingly clean wooden floors, whitewashed stone walls hung with black and gray gingham curtains and tasteful antique wooden chests under each window. Black and silver lanterns, their steel cut like lacework, hung sparkling from the exposed wood beams and Emma found herself going into intimidated-guest mode, afraid to broach the topic of ripping clothes off while she sat on a couch in front of a small fire with a glass of wine in hand as Regina poked, sneering a little, at some dying embers. Had she imagined Regina saying that? No, she had definitely said it. And now they were sidling around the fact of it, still reeling from the impact of each other like two expert boxers, waiting to see who would get knocked out and go down for the count first.

"I'm not good at this." Regina said stiffly, gesturing at the fire.

"Here- you work on the wine, I'll get this going." Emma crouched down, shucking off her leather jacket, and stirred the ashes before making a pyramid formation from kindling. As she heard Regina pick up a remote control and turn on some sort of hidden speaker system so soft music began to play, she was struck by the difference a day had made. Last night she'd been on the same wavelength as Shelley- almost ready to walk into the ocean. Now she felt as though she'd been transported into some sort of dream.

"So what exactly do you want to talk about, Regina?" Emma asked, keeping her vision trained on the small, growing fire.

"I shouldn't have ended things so abruptly." Regina said haughtily from the couch. Emma realized she had slid her small feet out of her shoes.

"I felt used." Emma said softly.

"Well, at least you didn't feel used and out a few thousand dollars." Regina swirled her wineglass in her hand.

"I never wanted your money, Regina. And if you hadn't manipulated my boss I wouldn't have had to take it. But God forbid I find a job where you can't boss mearound and-"

"Emma, understand this: as long as you are in Storybrooke I will not let any man touch you."

"Damnit, Regina, that's not how this stuff works!" Emma stood up, glaring. "You don't get to command me like that. You don't even get to ask that, if we're not together."

"How do you expect us to be together unless you belong to me?" Regina looked genuinely confused. "What else does that mean to you?"

"Belong to you? So what, your ideal set up is for me to lock myself away at home while you run around town with Graham?"

Regina's face went white. "Graham? Graham is no concern to you."

"Um, Graham is a big damn concern to me. Henry knows about his little climbs in and out of your bedroom window, Regina."

Regina looked down at her wine glass. "I haven't been with Graham that way since I saw you dance that night. He's…house sitting for me now in case Henry needs someone. And he got my groceries yesterday. And he…" she took a long pull of wine. "It was… very different with you." Regina said, and her eyes met Emma's. "It was profoundly different."

Emma settled back down by the fire, feeling way too pleased about that statement.

"So you've gotten me fired because I 'belong' to you, but you seem really anxious that we not be seen in public together. You want to have sex tonight after dumping me last night." Emma flung the stick she'd been using to prod the flames into the healthy, crackling fire that now leapt in the fireplace, then strolled over to the couch and sat a few feet from Regina.

"How do you see this going?" Emma asked, peering at Regina.

Regina handed her a wineglass from the coffee table.

"I'm glad you asked, Ms. Swan. Because I have a proposition for you."


	21. Dark & Light

Emma covered her face and groaned. "Stop it Regina, just stop it! You can't apply contracts to relationships-"

"Can you just hear me out?" Regina snapped.

"I am going to hear you out, only to explain to you why whatever you're proposing is just words and words are useless against feelings."

"I don't expect you to be impressed by verbal acuity or written language comprehension-" Regina flared. "But if you want to continue to see me outside of bickering with Henry I am going to need certain protections."

Emma leaned back in the couch, her hair falling over her bare arms, a bemused expression on her face. "Regina, I learned a long time ago there is no way to protect yourself from other people. You just have to be as good to them as you can be and hope they return the favor."

Regina had already pulled a sheet of paper off the coffee table and Emma groaned anew.

"You typed- you TYPED OUT A CONTRACT. You are so anal retentive it's not even funny."

Regina looked at her and waited for her to stop.

"In exchange for staying rent-free at this cabin, I will expect you to make yourself available for my purposes four nights a week, and all day and night Saturday and Sunday. You must stay out of Storybrooke and tell all connections there except for Henry. I will tell Henry you're working on a book and that is why you're retreating from the world, and we will separately work out a schedule so that you can visit him – exclusively- within the confines of the cabin. You will also receive a stipend of money from me and have full freedom to take day trips back to Boston and WiFi access and-"

Emma pulled the sheet of paper out of her hands, balled it up, and sank it expertly in the fire. Regina gritted her teeth.

"Damn it, Miss Swan!" Regina yelped.

"Here is why that is the craziest thing I have ever heard." Emma put up a hand and started ticking off points. "For starters, I am not going to lie to Henry, now or ever. Also, I'd rather not cut myself off from all of Storybrooke, thanks very much, I happen to really like my roommate and-"

"You can't see her anymore." Regina said with a finality in her voice that shook Emma.

"REGINA!" the dream world the cabin had appeared was sliding into nightmare-territory. "Regina, I can tell you're a smart lady. You're a sharp dresser and you're hot as hell. So why are you so incredibly emotionally dense?"

"I am not emotionally dense."

"Regina, you are essentially asking me to hide up here and be your little cabin sex toy. I'm a person, Regina, do you get that? Can you wrap your mind around the idea I'm a free person with a will and mind of my own?"

Leaning close to her, both of them heated, the two women paused together and Emma could sense Regina holding back as much as she was. Regina was, no two ways about it, insane in Emma's eyes and yet she couldn't force the feelings from her mind that Regina had brought out of her mind and body the night before. Those ghostly moments of passion hung between them like links in a chain binding them together, pulling them closer the more they struggled apart. Regina got up and stepped away from the couch, walking to one of the windows, her back to Emma. Emma was grateful for the distance, it allowed her to focus a little more on what she should be saying instead of what she wanted to say.

"When I saw you in Underland," Regina began. "It changed the way I thought of you. Initially, you seemed like this impossibly self-righteous, blonde little snit who'd come to take my son away. When I saw you in Underland I saw you weren't afraid of the dark parts of Storybrooke. Maybe you were even drawn to them. The first time I saw you dance, I saw someone who could illuminate the dark and yet exist within it. You glowed, Emma…and I'm not just talking about the literal light in your hair. I'm talking about the joy in your face, the light of your presence…"

Regina paused, as though waiting for Emma to make a joke, but Emma was bathing in the words, feeling her face blush.

"There is a lot about me you don't know Emma, a lot that I cannot ever tell you. There is…a lot of darkness. But I believe you can dispel it. The same way you turned a depressing night in a titty bar into one of the most ecstatic performances I've seen in my life…I feel a certainty that you are the only person who can make me- and Henry- happy. " she turned to face Emma, who was sitting perfectly still on the couch.

"But I need to figure out how I can keep you without destroying _everything_ I've built here." Regina waved an arm tiredly as though to encompass the entire town below them.

"What, you think Storybrooke can't handle a gay mayor?"

"It's much more complicated than that, but I cannot explain it to you."

"Try me. My listening comprehension is better than you think."

"Believe me, Miss Swan." A bitter expression crossed Regina's face. " You wouldn't stay if I told you."

"What, are you like- involved with organized crime or something?!" Emma sat up, tilting her head. She felt flattered, but more than flattered she felt wary.

Regina sighed heavily and set down her empty glass with a heavy clink on the windowsill. "I knew this wouldn't work. If you like I can drive you home, Miss Swan. It's clear you're not listening to me."

"Regina, stop it." Emma crossed over to her and put her arms around Regina's waist. The Mayor's sharp intake of breath encouraged her to enfold her in a tight embrace.

"I _love_ what you just said to me. My head is still spinning to hear you say those kinds of things. Everything except for the secrecy part I- I…I _want _to make you happy. I really hope that I can. But I can't be in a relationship with someone who doesn't see me as an equal, do you get that? And right now you're so far above me-"

"Above you?" a coy smile played on Regina's lips. "You see me as being _better _than you?"

"Only in every possible way." Regina hid her words in a slightly joking tone, which started to vanish as she rambled on. "Let's see, you're way hotter, you dress insanely well, you've managed to provide an incredible home for the kid with everything he could ask for, you're a freaking MAYOR-you might possibly be also some kind of lady mobster, which I don't exactly approve of but would be kind of impressive in its own way…"

Regina ducked her head to hide a shy, sincere smile. "I'm not a mobster."

"That's a relief." Emma touched her forehead to Regina's, and felt the woman seize with apprehension, so she took a step away. "Also, while its very generous of you to offer I guess, I don't want money from you ever again Regina. I mean, you've already blown so much on me I feel like its virtually impossible to level the playing field. ..Although I'll tell you what would really help."

Regina put her hands on her hips. "What?"

Emma pulled a wooden chair from the side of the room a few feet before the fire and sat with her back to the flames. "I'd really love to buy a lap dance."

A wicked grin bloomed across Regina's face.


	22. The Dark Part

Emma managed to keep her face impassive as Regina sank onto her lap in only black lace panties and a bra. It was almost impossible, but by clenching and unclenching her hands into tight fists she hoped she could keep her eyes in her was straddling Emma, whose back was to the fire, so she was perfectly illuminated by the fireplace, made her eyes glow and delicate purple shadows outline the perfect e curves of her legs and breasts.

Yet for all there was to look at, it was Regina's lips that transfixed her the most. Perfectly painted red, they floated mere inches from her. Her arms wound around Regina's waist, pulling Regina more tightly against her, making Regina gasp a little. And then she tilted her head back and tried to touch Regina's lips with hers.

"No no no….that's against the rules." Regina said playfully, and Emma felt a cold chill pass through her and her arms grew tighter around Regina's slim, toned waist.

"_Forget_ the rules. Let's stop playing and move to the couch."

Regina practically threw her onto the floor, kicking the chair away from them and coiling on top of Emma's lap, her hair falling in front of her eyes, her chest heaving, her hips still working on top of Emma's. Emma felt a dark wave of sensation threaten to pull her into the almost unconscious realm of physical pleasure that was waiting just an arm-length away when Regina ducked by her ear and whispered, "The no kissing rule still applies."

"Wha-why?" the chill was piercing Emma through. She could feel goosebumps rise on her arms. She didn't like the sense of physical rejection. It stirred up to many lizard-brain memories of her baby self, untouched and unheld, gazing out at a world that had no desire to hold her.

"Because I say so." Regina cocked her head, still on her lap, but no longer grinding. "Is that a problem?"

"What, no kissing at all? Ever? How are we supposed to have a relationship if we don't kiss? I'm not- like- I don't…" Emma's face scrunched up. "Do you have mono?"

"Mono?" Regina sneered. "Of course not."

Emma walked her torso up on her elbows so she was almost sitting upright, forcing Regina to slide off of her and sit with her back against the couch, her perfect body outlined in orange light by the fire.

"Why won't you kiss me?!" Emma demanded. "This is exactly what I'm talking about, these mind games, you acting like I'm just some- some -prostitute or something-"

"Well I remember paying to have sex with you yesterday, so maybe that's the source of my confusion."

Emma shot to her feet and grabbed her jacket. She was through the door and into the cold before she had both sleeves on, her boots making heavy clodding sounds on the short porch and the few steps down into the dark woods. Luckily a full moon sent rays through the trees and she could make out a path as she walked past the Benz. She realized, with chagrin, that it had been her mistake to even let things go to a physical place after Regina had said so many crazy, possessive, degrading things to begin with. Emma had learned at her cost the damage a partner you can't trust can do, and she silently cursed herself for letting her palpable attraction to Regina blind her to the woman's continued callousness. Behind her, she heard the door cabin door squeak open and Regina's footsteps kicking up twigs and rocks behind her, having run out of the house after pulling a coat over her almost-naked body.

"Emma! Where do you think you're going?!" Regina shouted.

"Back to Storybrooke."

"You're just _leaving me_?!"

Emma couldn't resist the note in her voice, and turned. In the moonlight, Regina's stricken expression was almost more than she could bear.

"I can't do this. I can't keep playing these games with you." she stepped close to her, so close they were practically sharing the same breath.

"This isn't a _game_ to me." Regina protested.

Emma, in answer, ducked her face to kiss her, but Regina pulled away and put an arm between them, rigid, fingers out-stretched. Yet tears were coursing down her face. "I…can't…do…that." Regina said through gritted teeth.

"Why?" Emma's voice was strained and wild.

"I just can't."

Emma shrugged feebly, a gesture of helpless resignation. "You know, in Underland, we were always told 'never kiss the customer's because that broke the fantasy. It made things real. It made the relationship real. So the fact you can't kiss me tells me this isn't real to you. It's just an extension of the fantasy you started in Underland. Well, I'm not a fantasy, Regina. I'm a real person and I want a real relationship."

Regina was weeping in the moonlight, a figure painted in with blue light and black shadows.

Emma continued on, feeling with dull pain the clarity the words were giving her."I don't know what a kiss, in the middle of the woods where no one can see, has to do with anything you want to protect – your mayorship, or the fact you're in the closet, or whatever shit you've 'built' all these years. It's not going to affect those things. Its just going to show me this is real. " Emma could almost curse herself for how desperate she sounded, but she couldn't hide the plea in her voice. "Please, Regina. Please show me this is real."

"Emma…" Regina covered her face with her hands, then let them drop, and shook her hair back from her face. "I'm sorry." She said at last. She pulled the coat around her a little tighter and stood up straight. "I'm sorry, Ms. Swan."

"Not as sorry as I am." Emma said, and turned away to start the long walk back toward Storybrooke.

"No! Come back at once- You are mine!" Regina's voice rang through the woods, chasing after Emma, who forced herself to keep ploddingforward. "You belong to me, do you hear me? _You will always belong to me_."

* * *

Emma was still, she imagined, five miles from her apartment when her phone went off, and felt a pang of gratitude that Ruby was checking in on her.

"Emma, talk to me. You sort it all out?"

"I got some closure, I think." Emma said, looking up as an owl flew overhead. "Some things are just not meant to be."

"Where are you? I definitely just heard a hoot."

"Umm…kind of off the beaten track."

"Are you on foot, at night, in the freaking woods Emma?"

"Mmmmaybe." Emma felt her eyes edge with tears.

"Okay, I'm headed out to find you now. Mary Margaret and Fey are up to their eyeballs in margaritas right now and me and Shelley and Tiana want to go do something else."

"Tiana?"

"Don't you remember Tiana? She's the woman of my dreams who makes the delicious donuts. You'll love her. We'll head towards the woods now. Any particular area of the woods?"

"The dark part?" Emma joked, then looked around her. "I think I'm actually pretty close to the 'Leaving Storybrooke' sign..."

"Okay. Meet you there."


	23. Graham's Grave

Emma's nights were free now, but her body clock hadn't shifted. Emma found herself marathoning movies late at night and sleeping past 11. Underland, Ruby informed her, was still plodding along, though several dancers had quit after Ursula doubled the house fee. Partly at Mary Margaret's urging, Emma tried to take the nominal (and unpaid) position of Sheriff's deputy a little more seriously.

_It's not because I'm hoping Graham will slip and talk about Regina_. Emma told herself. _Not even a little bit._ Graham seemed to have a lot more time on his hands at night as well, and they met frequently to play darts or share beers with the uneasy comraderie of two exes not quite over their shared obsession. At least, that was Emma's impression of their relationship- until Graham forced a kiss on her in a drunken moment in the street and then visibly mentally disintegrated in front of her, leading her on a chase around Storybrooke that ended with Regina, in a graveyard- striking her straight in the face.

* * *

Ruby was wrapped in a quilt in Mary Margaret's couch, sitting next to the smaller woman, her face for once free of any makeup. She was still in the plain black dress she'd worn to Graham's funeral. Mary Margaret had spent the day silently refilling her tea cup and being a quiet, supportive presence. Emma had spent the day wondering if Regina's jaw hurt as much as hers did, and quietly searching the crowd of mourners for Regina . She had never showed.

So she skipped Graham's funeral? But he had been her – her what? Not quite a boyfriend, but a partner in some capacity. Emma looked down at the brass Sheriff's star she would now wear. A position that until now had served the mayor's pleasure like as assiduously as a dancer would try to please their regular. "Well, not anymore." Emma whispered.

Once Ruby drifted to sleep, Emma left the gloomy apartment at dusk for a walk to clear her head. She found herself retracing the funeral procession to the graveyard where Graham was now, and as she approached the small, tree-dotted cemetery saw the figure of Regina before his grave, the unmistakable silouhette carved in black against the darkening sky.

Emma approached, her heart hammering, and Regina turned at her footsteps. Her eyes were wet, but as they rested on Emma grew hard.

"I'm glad you finally made it. You missed the services."

"I didn't want to bring Henry. A funeral is no place for a child."

"He'll miss Graham too though."

"Certainly." Regina peered at her. "As will you?"

Emma blinked. "Of course. We were friends."

"I thought you were more than that." Regina hissed. "Half the town saw you kissing him."

Emma gulped, and took a step back. "This is not the time and it's certainly not the place."

Regina's eyes filled with tears that spilled onto her cheeks, her rageful expression crumpled helplessly.

"I didn't want any of this. I didn't want to hit you. I didn't want to hurt him." Regina covered her face with her hands and sank to her knees, hitting the damp grass hard. Her agonized sobs came in gasps. "He was the only one…in this whole town…and I…I'm the reason he's dead…" her words trailed off.

"Regina, Graham died of a heart attack. I'm sure witnessing a catfight in a graveyard didn't help his blood pressure but you can't blame yourself." Emma knelt beside her, unsure of whether or not to put a hand on her shaking back. "I regret that I didn't force him to go to a hospital that night, it was so obvious he was having an episode. But you can't hold on to that regret, Regina. You have to accept the past and go forward."

"Oh, it's not me who should have regrets." Regina said, her voice deepening. "You are mine. And if you had _acted_ like it, he would still be alive." She flashed a hot look at Emma.

Emma's jaw dropped. "You can't be serious. You're blaming ME because Graham had a _manic episode_?"

"I'm blaming you for _throwing yourself_ at him to get _back_ at _me_." Regina snarled. "For making a point to lock lips with the only man in town we both talk to, because I wouldn't kiss you!"

"Graham FORCED that kiss on me, first off, and how dare you. How dare you! I have no words. No words for how crazy you are." Emma shook her head, shaking a little." And thank _God_ I didn't get involved with you, Regina."

Regina looked stung, and Emma continued. "You're _abusive_. You're lucky I haven't filed charges. You just about broke my jaw,"

"One moment of anger wipes out everything I've done for you? After you just left me like that? How is that fair?" Regina sounded genuinely confused, with a child's lack of comprehension.

"'Everything before' was almost as screwed up as this, Regina. "

"It could have been different." Regina whispered.

"Oh yeah? Really? How long would it have been before you hit me if we had been together, Regina? If I had stayed on my best behavior would that have bought me a few months? You need help. You need Archie and maybe Dr. Whale." Emma stood.

"And you're such a pacifist? You hit back with everything you had." Regina muttered. "I spat out blood that night, Miss Swan."

Emma felt a pang at these words. "I'm sorry." She managed. "But you started it."

"You started it by coming here!" Regina stood, in her face, so close Emma could smell her exquisite perfume. It brought back red and magenta memories that made her knees shake.

"Adoptive parents deal with birth mothers all the time." Emma growled. "You know what they don't do? F-ck with their heads and make them their personal sex slaves." Her face blushed at the words.

"I don't remember you complaining at the time." Regina replied. The hidden sensuality in her words went too deep. Emma's knees buckled. She pushed herself away from Regina before she'd be drawn into trying to kiss her again- and be, again, rejected.

"I refuse to talk about this anymore. I have to be in your life because of Henry but I don't ever want to talk about what went down at Underland- ever again. It never happened."

"So you're leaving me, again." Regina was almost inaudible.

"Goodbye, Regina." Emma said, and walked away.

* * *

It wasn't a surprise to Emma that Regina fought her becoming Sheriff. A job she couldn't control, of course she'd do everything in her power to fight it. While neither of them vocalized what the fight was really about, Emma ended every day leading up to the Sheriff election exhausted from managing her feelings. She spent restless nights with her traitor brain sending her images from the time she and Regina had broken all the rules in the Champagne room, images that she woke from in a sweat of frustration, reaching for her phone and then throwing it aside.

Why did she want someone this wrong, this badly?


	24. Poor Unfortunate Soul

The night of the fire, once Emma had helped Regina limp out of City Hall, they were packed onto the same ambulance, where they sat practically knee to knee. Regina stared at Emma as they flew toward Storybrooke hospital, where Dr. Whale insisted they put an oxygen mask on. They sat in the same room, on either side of a tank, each with a mask over their face.

"Let's just let you both oxygenate for an hour and then we'll do x-rays." Dr. Whale said, flipping through their charts.

"This is _preposterous_. I'm fine, your nurse bandaged my ankle, I need to go home at once and prepare for tomorrow's town meeting-"

Emma rolled her eyes above her oxygen mask.

"With all due respect, Regina, you have no idea what you've just inhaled. The part of the City Hall that was burning was under construction, so Go knows what toxic fumes from burning paint or lacquer or plastic you've both swallowed. I don't know if I can in good conscience release you until the morning. We'll know once we look at those x-rays."

"Damnit, Whale, I have to get home to Henry and-" Regina broke off in a fit of choking. Emma practically jumped to her feet and filled a paper cup with water from the sink, glancing at Dr. Whale first who nodded that it was okay.

Regina gulped the water down with a curious look at Emma, then replaced her mask and sat back in her chair. "Tell me who to call, I'll have them go over and stay with Henry." Dr. Whale offered. Regina wrote down Kathryn's number and Dr. Whale passed it on to an orderly, then sent for a nurse to trade them their oxygen masks for an oxygen tent .

"You should also be drinking water and flushing your systems." the nurse advised, taking their masks from them and pushing the paper cups and a mauve jug of water under the hem of the sheer, white-clear oxygen tent curtain. It fell around them like a veil, blocking the outside world out.

They sat silently next to each for a moment, both of them taking ragged, deep breaths.

"Thank you." Regina said at last.

"You're welcome." Emma said politely, she hoped. Her fists were clenched and resting on her legs, she was staring straight ahead. Still she felt herself vitally aware of Regina peeling off her blazer, slipping her arms out of the sleeves. The gesture was innocent enough, the plastic material of the oxygen tent made it stuffy in their little enclousre, but still. The exposure of Regina's olive arms in their capped sleeves made her face go red.

"Water?" Regina poured a cup and offered it to her. Emma took it gratefully.

"You might as well get used to the fact I'm going to be sheriff." Emma croaked at last. "I would have thought you'd be glad I was doing a job I could tell Henry about."

"I don't think you realize you'll be working with me closer than before."

"I really don't see how we could get closer than we did at my last job." Emma heard the words shoot out of her mouth before she could stop them, but luckily Regina seemed to laugh a little at the comment.

"I'm sorry, I've erased all that from my memory, as per your request." Regina sipped delicately from her cup. "But it may interest you to know that whoever the new Sheriff is will find their first duty is shutting down Underland. I've just proposed an ordinance against selling liquor in topless or bikini bars. So unless Ursula is going to start serving smoothies…"

"I'd love for that person to be me." Emma said darkly. "I'd also love to catch Ursula out for what she did to Shelley."

Regina's eyebrow lifted. "Oh? And what did she do?"

"It's sort of a long story?"

"We're stuck in a tent together, Ms Swan. Amuse me."

The phrase made goosebumps break out on Emma's arms, but she took another sip of water and started explaining.

* * *

Ursula frowned at the paperwork Emma had just handed her. Emma leaned back so the Sheriff's star clipped to her belt was in full view.

"I don't understand. My liquor license is revoked AND I owe one Miss Triton, alias 'Shelley', renumeration in the amount of $10,000?! Are you out of your mind?!"

It was a slow evening, so her booming voice only disturbed the three dancers working the almost-empty room.

"You made a business contract with an employee and then garnered her wages to pay down a debt, forcing her to stay in a job she wanted to quit. A job that involved meeting regulars and unclothing. That's perilously close to pimping, Ursula. In fact, Mayor Mills wanted us to go after you for running a de facto prostitution ring, but…" Emma shrugged. "I'm just such a softy."

"If Mayor Mills wants to accuse me of prostitution, well then I'd like to out her as one of Underland's biggest Johns, Princess. As I recall you hopped on her lap for a week straight for a small fortune."

Emma cleared her throat. She and Regina had anticipated this. "It was a sting operation, Ursula. The Mayor and I were both working together to assess the legality of Underland. Needless to say, our investigations could take you straight into court. But we'd rather handle this quietly."

Ursula was practically tearing her hair out, looking over the fine print again and again. "Well I don't know how you expect me to pay 'Miss Triton' when you've taken away my only means of income. Boys don't want a lot of tits and Shirley Temples. I make my money on the drinks the girls sell. I just renewed the liquor license here revoked. You can't get blood from a stone."

"Then release the intellectual property rights to Shelley." Sheriff Swan leaned over the bar, and felt an appreciative wave of triumph as Ursula cowered at her approach. "Maybe if you release the rights to that song and simply pay her back the wages you withheld, and maybe I can talk her into dropping the charges of violating state and federal law concerning coercion and forced employment."

"That's still a lot of money." Ursula bit her bright red lip. "But…"

"I have the release forms drawn up right here." Emma pulled out copies of a contract she and Regina had gone over with Sidney.

With a groan, Ursula picked up a pen and signed.

* * *

Sheriff Swan picked up her radio when she got back in the patrol car. Regina's voice crackled on the other end.

"Operation Music Box- a success?"

Emma smiled. "So _that's_ where he gets it from." She murmured to herself. Regina had the same nerdy love for operation code names and secret intrigues as Henry.

"Yes Madam Mayor." She said .

"Well good." Regina's voice came through. "Because I need your help with something else, Sheriff. It appears someone has broken into my cabin."

"I'll head up there now, Madam Mayor." Emma said, and pointed her car towards the woods.


	25. At Any Cost

The Benz was already gleaming in the driveway when Emma pulled up to the modest, shaded cabin. Their plan to end the exploitive situation in Underland had gone very well, and while the cabin held memories she didn't want to revisit, she felt weirdly pleased when she came up and Regina was waiting on the steps, not approaching the door, which swung ajar.

The car sank deeply into the mud, it had rained recently, and Emma grabbed her roll of Crime Scene Tape as she got out of the car.

"So what happened?"

"I noticed the door had been forced." Regina said, gesturing. "It looks like someone broke the window pane, drew back the bolt, and then forced open the standard lock from outside for good measure."

Emma nodded, pulling on gloves and stepping over muddy footsteps into the living room. There were definitely two sets, a woman's and a man's. A window had been forced open as well, and Emma saw scattered feathers near the window, sodden from rain that had blown in.

"Someone must have forced their way in during the rainstorm. When's the last time you were up here?"

"Three days ago." Regina answered. Emma looked around. Pillar candles on the coffee table. A bowl of apples on the table, next to a box of chocolates. Emma moved with quick steps into the bedroom- fresh satiny sheets covered the bed and a pair of new terry cloth robes hung on the back of the door to the bedroom. She came back out to the porch, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.

"Having a guest up here?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business." Regina snapped.

"Well, have you looked to see if anything has been taken?"

"I was trying not to interfere with the crime scene, but if I can come in…"

Regina stepped past Emma and set down a heavy grocery bag on the kitchen table. Emma's jaw dropped: a bottle of extremely nice champagne and bags of ice?! She felt her cheeks get hot. The break-in seemed genuine enough. So why did she feel like Regina was throwing it in her face that she was planning a romantic assignation? Just the idea of someone else touching Regina made her feel queasy. There was certainly no one she'd seen in Storybrooke deserving of what Regina was with her clothes off. Her heart was racing as she followed Regina with her eyes as the immaculately dressed woman strode around the room, her sharp eyes missing nothing.

"Hmm, these blankets were definitely not in front of the fire." She pointed to the pile of soft wool blankets between the couch and fire. She strode with two steps into the bathroom and Emma heard a tsk-tsk sound. Emma creeped over to the grocery bag and moved the champagne aside, looking angrily for more romantic paraphernalia, hating herself for it but unable to deny her suspicions. At the bottom of the bag was a fresh change of silky sheets. Just the thought of Regina swimming in them, unclothed, made unbearable heat flood through Emma. Regina came back in, shutting the door behind her and Emma stepped swiftly away from the bag.

"Nothing of value has been taken as far as I can tell."

"Probably just kids out in the woods trying to stay out of the rain." Emma shrugged, looking around. "Probably not worth worrying about."

Regina's eyebrows came together and her voice rose to fill the cabin. "Not worth worrying about?! 'Sheriff' Swan, two people came into my house. They made a fire! They could have burned this place down!"

"A fire? What? How can you tell?" Emma snapped.

"Look at those ashes. Can you see me building up something like that?"

Emma almost smiled, a bittersweet pang filling her heart remembering Regina's pathetic attempts to start a fire. The remains of several logs were evident in the ash.

"Look Regina, I don't know what to tell you. I can dust for fingerprints if you want ,but you might consider how much that will kill the mood between you and whoever you're planning to bang up here. Or install up here long term, whatever, I don't care."

Regina's hands went on her hips. "Excuse me?"

"Hey, I don't want to know. But neither does Henry. Tell him he can have a sleepover at my place and he never has to know."

Regina's face was furious, her hands on her hips. "You are overstepping boundary lines YOU demanded on drawing, 'Sheriff.' And how _dare_ you insinuate I'm- I'm planning trysts in my cabin!"

Emma pointed to the bag on the table. "Champagne?! Matching robes?! I get it, Regina, you like to f-ck. You REALLY like to f-ck. Have a _great_ time. But don't call me up on some stupid pretext to rub my nose in it, because that's just – it's just cruel."

Regina waved a hand in front of her face as though trying to block the words."If you must know, I'm lending the cabin to Kathryn and David Nolan as a thank you after she so kindly checked in on Henry the night of the fire. Kathryn told me they needed a romantic getaway. I thought I'd leave champagne and chocolates as a welcome."

Emma found it hard to swallow, but did at last. "Oh." David Nolan? That name sounded awfully familiar.

"It hasn't even crossed my mind to be with someone since…since whatever." Regina said softly. "Although I don't know why I'm telling you, it's certainly none of your business."

Emma felt relief flood through her, dousing the mounting hot, dark anger that had been growing inside her since she first saw the candles on the coffee table. "So what, is that part of your 'you belong to me' crap?"

"Didn't you? At least once." Regina suddenly seemed to be holding very still, yet was unable to prevent a small smile from appearing briefly below large, soft eyes. The one time she meant rose up in Emma's mind and triggered a fireworks display of hormones and endorphins that swamped her memory, her senses, her entire being.

Something in Emma snapped, some long re-inforced wall that shored up her resistance to Regina's beauty crumbled. She crossed the room in three strides and fell to her knees in front of Regina, trying to avoid her face, kissing the band of her skirt, following the indentation of her hip bones until her head hovered between Regina's legs, kneeling at her feet and unable to meet her eye. Regina gasped at first in shock and then in understanding leaned against the back of the couch.

"I can't do it anymore. I need you so badly." Emma practically wept. "This never happened, do you understand?"

"Do _you_ understand? _Nothing's_ changed, Emma. I can't kiss you on the lips." Regina murmured with a tremble of pleasure as Emma's hands traveled up her legs.

"That's not where I want to kiss you." Emma answered.

* * *

Emma left first. It had only been a two hour detour. A long lunch. She got in her car, trembling, and made her way back down to Storybrooke, heading for the cannery where Shelley lived.

She knew with painful certainty that what she had tried to do before would always fail: there was no way she could give Regina up again.

She'd take her on any terms.


	26. The Pros and Cons of Roommates

Evening was falling when Shelley lead Emma up to the roof of the cannery, where she and roommate Zelda sat in rusty iron lawn chairs, smoking and chatting under strings of light. Downtown Storybrooke and the harbor spread out past them, disappearing into the horizon.

Emma started by handing Shelley the contract with Ursula's signature.

"Your songs now belong to you. It t urns out in only accepting repayment of a personal loan by forcing you to do a minor form of sex work, Ursula was violating a slew of state and federal laws. Rather than face charges,s hes' agreed to relinquish all rights on the intellectual property." It was a rather complicated speech, she'd been practicing the correct legal phrasing in the car. Emma was so relieved she got it right it took her a moment to notice Shelley had covered her face with her hands and was sobbing. Zelda, her hair piled in a mass of messy braids on top of her head, spun around the room clapping and whooping in triumph.

"I'm going down to the cornerstore and getting us the best champagne four dollars can buy!"

"Make that twenty four." Emma said, handing Zelda a bill. Shelley was still weakly crying , her bare slim shoulders (she was wearing, as every, a lavendar tube top) shaking under her red hair.

"You don't understand Emma. I worked on these songs for years. This means _everything_." she said at last, her face radiant.

"Don't mention it." Emma smiled. "How are you doing since Underland closed?"

"Mary Margaret actually got me a job." Shelley gave her a huge grin. "I've been helping the music teacher at the school with some of the younger grades. It's not the same money but it's a hell of a lot more fun than having to deal with Ursula every night."

Emma felt a flood of warmth toward her roommate and her propensity for quietly doing super amazing things for other people.

"How did things end with your regular?" Emma asked.

Shelley shook her red bangs out of her eyes and gave Emma a look. "How did things end with YOUR regular?"

"They haven't." Emma admitted guiltily.

"Well, same here."

"Is he still engaged?"

"Yup." Shelley popped the 'p' of the yup. "I keep telling him never to talk to me again. That he's a dog for trying to see me when his wedding is only a few months away. But when he calls me I pick up. When he comes by I let him in. I can't…" she lit a cigarette with shaky fingers. "Maybe it's leftover from Underland. That mentality of , like, if you can get them to want you, you have the real power. But you _need_ them to want you , and that -that's the real addiction. And outside of this twisted little power game you're playing, everything else just becomes so boring…and dim and unreal."

Emma gulped silently. The words hit her like a punch. Just at that moment though, they heard Zelda pop open the hatch door that led to the roof and climb out, champagne bottle in one hand, flutes in the other.

"Heeelp!" she laughed, and Emma rushed to her assistance. "Not me, save the champagne! The champagne!"

* * *

Emma came home late to the apartment, still hiccupping a little. Watching the sun set listening to Zelda's insane stories from when she first ran awy from home and was living on the street brought out a lot of old tales about her time in the foster system- dark stories she'd never wanted to share, but somehow with the lights above and the bubbles of champagne in her hand, it was all so hilariously awful. The three women laughed on the rooftop until the moon came out and cold winds blew. Now, as she went to put her key in the latch, she heard the unmistakable sound of Mary Margaret's moneymakers clomp, clomp, clomping. She listened and heard the strains of "Single Ladies" by Taylor Swift. Suppressing a wicked giggle, Emma decided to open the door as quietly as possible and catch her roommate in the middle of one of her solo dance routines to the radio.

With infinite patience she turned the key and noiselessly pushed the door open a few inches to a sight that made her jaw drop.

David Nolan was sitting on a wooden chair while Snow, in the sky-high clear heels , white underpants and a fuzzy mohair sweater that fell off one shoulder, gave him an intense lapdance.

Emma backed out of the apartment and closed the door behind her.

* * *

She thought briefly of sleeping at Ruby's. But then, David would probably leave soon enough and all her hair stuff was in the apartment. Emma curled up in her bug, staking out her own apartment, waiting for David to leave.

So that's why David Nolan had sounded so familiar. Mary Margaret had talked about him a few times. He was the same John Doe from the hospital. "So much for your romantic weekend anyway, Kathryn." Emma muttered to herself, slouching down in the passenger seat of the bug.

Didn't he work at the animal rescue center? And hadn't Mary Margaret been freaking out about bringing some dove over to the animal rescue center a couple days ago?

Emma though of the sodden feathers on the floor of Regina's cabin. The two sets of muddy footprints.

"No way." Emma breathed. If her hunch was correct, Mary Margaret and David had been the ones to break into Regina's cabin. If Regina had been a normal, sane person she'd call her up and tell her, "hey, don't get angry but…"

Asking Regina not to get angry was like asking the sun not to shine.

Her phone chimed on her belt. Speak of the devil! Regina was texting her.

_Can you come back to the cabin?_

Emma felt the side of her mouthcurl into a smile.

_Mebbe y?_

Regina's text came back immediately.

_Because despite your thorough investigations earlier it seems you may have missed a spot._

Emma choked on a laugh in her car.

_O rilly_

_Sheriff Swan get up here NOW._

* * *

Emma woke with images from their night still brilliant in her head. Lightning had flashed through the windows when they came together, illuminating Regina as she straddled her in brilliant light. Now as they lay side by side, Emma wanted nothing better than to kiss Regina awake and say all the soft little things that were coming up out of her. "Like worms after a rainstorm." Emma grumbled to herself, and instead threw herself out of bed and went hunting for her clothes.

She had both boots ready to go when Regina appeared in the door way, wrapped in a red satin sheet like a toga.

"You're not on duty for another three hours." She said softly.

"Henry?"

"Sleepover with some friends."

"Henry has friends?" Emma's eyebrows flew up. "Wow, I'm really glad he's doing normal kid stuff."

"It may have something to do with me dangling a promotion in front of the father of the most popular boy in school."

"You didn't." Emma leaned against herchair, boot forgotten.

"That boy's birthday was the social event of the third grade. Henry desperately wanted to be invited. So I made it happen."

"He'll find out. Someone will tell him or they'll make fun of him or-"

Regina sighed. "Or he'll just go and have a chance to spend time with kids his age instead of obsessing about his birth mom's sordid history."

"It's not that sordid." Emma bobbed her reluctantly in agreement. "Okay its pretty sordid."

Regina moved toward the coffee machine, expertly navigating the room despite the trailing sheet behind her, looking perfectly at ease with her makeshift satin train. "You know, if you had an apartment to yourself, it would make things a lot easier."

"Regina, don't start arranging my life please…"

"I'm just saying. Why do you need a roommate? Your salary pays well enough you could get a place on your own. And then…" she reached with her leg and poked Emma with her toe. "_Lots_ of sleepovers might happen."

Emma stood and wrapped her arms around Regina, her face hovering by hers but keeping her lips a respectful distance from Regina's.

"Hey control freak, I happen to like my roommate. She looks out for me. She's a nice person. She keeps me from being lonely." She hangs out with me in public, Emma added silently to herself.

"And I can't do any of those things?" Regina sounded so weirdly hurt. Why was she acting jealous of Mary Margaret?

"She's straight, you know." Emma tried to sound a little jokey. "Just in case that's part of this."

Regina rolled her eyes and shoved herself out of Emma's grasp. "Okay. I'm going to shower, you get to work." Regina growled. "I'll see you later, Sheriff Swan."

"Sooner, I hope." Emma called after her.


	27. Loyalty

"Murder?!" Ruby stared at Emma blankly. "Mary Margaret is in jail right now on suspicion of murder? That's insane! I don't even think she eats meat."

Emma swept appliance parts away from where Ruby was leaning her elbows on their apartment's kitchen counter and set down a cup of cocoa in front of Ruby. The blender had been sacrificed to her manic fingers the night before. Ruby indicated the whisky bottle behind her and Emma slipped a hearty dose into both of their steaming mugs before settling on a stool across from Ruby.

"It's ridiculous but until I can disprove the evidence Regina is insisting that she stay there. I stayed as long as I was allowed with her tonight. I'll be in early tomorrow so she won't have to be there alone."

It had all gone down yesterday, and Regina had almost ordered her to invite her to the apartment. Emma, traumatized by seeing her roommate behind bars, hadn't answered her texts. Now, unable to trust herself not to cave to Regina again, she had gotten Ruby to stay with her in the apartment, which felt so hauntingly alone without Mary Margaret's presence.

"Who even-"

Emma shook her head. "I'm not at liberty to discuss right now."

Ruby gave her a dark look and Emma sighed and then leaned forward. "Ruby, this has to stay between us, but Kathryn's car was found on the Storybrooke line and so far…" Emma dragged her fingers through her hair. "It's- crazy but..there's evidence linking Mary Margaret to her disappearance. Its so dramatic I'm starting to think it's a frame up job."

"Why would anyone frame Mary Margaret? All she does is teach and be nice to people." Ruby took a sip of her cocoa. "Wait, Kathryn's husband, David Nolan, he and Mary Margaret…"

Emma had gone through it all before. Her phone was silently vibrating in her pocket. More texts from Regina, of course.

_Are you going to invite me over tonight or what._

_I find it absolutely ridiculous you have a place to yourself in town and we're apart right now. _

_We should talk, among other things._

_Why aren't you answering me?_

_HELLO EMMA?! HEEELLOOO hot sex here, knock knock knock._

_You are going to deeply regret ignoring me._

Emma powered the phone down guiltily, but unable to figure out how to respond. She knew how much she'd set off Regina if she said she was sort of too worried about her roommate to hang out. Or even worse,if she expressed that small, irrepressible instinct that Regina was somehow GLAD Mary-Margaret was in jail. Even though Kathryn, Regina's supposed best friend, was missing.

* * *

The knock on the door interrupted Ruby and Emma at close to midnight. Emma opened the door a crack and looked out to see Regina, her hair slightly disheveled, a black trenchcoat over her black silky pajamas.

"Hey…" Emma said. "I kind of have a friend over right now."

"Oh?" said Regina icily, and threw open the door to see Ruby sitting innocently enough with Mary Margaret's ragged quilt on her lap and a mug in her hand.

"Its important Storybrooke business." Regina glared at Ruby. "If you don't mind, the Sheriff and I need some privacy."

Emma smiled wanly in apology at Ruby, who picked up her bag and phone with a knowing look at Emma. "Right." She said angrily at Regina, and slammed the door on her way out.

"You told her, didn't you."

"No, Regina."

"I know the little walkie talkie game you are playing with Henry _behind my back_ and so help me, if I find out you're spreading rumors about us around town I will break his walkie talkie into a million pieces."

"Damn it, Regina, what the hell is your problem?!" Emma snarled, her rage becoming uncontrollable at the mention of Regina's latest set of restrictions on Henry. Regina swore she was trying to keep Henry safe from learning about their f-ck buddy relationship. But it felt more like she was punishing Emma for doing her job despite their relationship. "In case you haven't been to Earth recently, its considered extremely rude to barge into someone's house in the middle of night and tell their friends to leave."

Regina put her hands on her hips. "And who am I?"

"Hell if I know." Emma said, gritting her teeth. "Let's see, I'm not allowed to kiss you. I'm not allowed to be with you in public. I'm not allowed to tell people we hang out. I am allowed to provide you with as many orgasms as you can handle at a secret location when and if you so desire , and that's about it. So what _is_ that called, Regina?"

"Don't you understand that now that can change?" Regina's voice softened, an she put a tentative hand on Emma's shoulder. Emma wanted to flinch away from the contact to prove a point, but fell for Regina's sudden, uncharacteristically tender expression.

"How?" whispered Emma.

"This-" Regina swung an arm to indicate the room. "I've never seen where you live before. We can try and build something here now. With perfect privacy. We can be with each other whenever we want throughout the day. And not just for- we can talk. We can share. We can be with each other."

"I don't know if you've heard but Mary Margaret still lives here. I know for a fact she's not guilty of anything and she'll be back here probably tomorrow night, so-"

Regina laughed airily. "Oh, okay. If you say so."

"Why are you so cavalier about this?" Emma found her voice slipping into despair mode. "She's my best friend, and she's experiencing the greatest disaster of her life."

"Has it even occurred to you that she might actually be a super-manipulative liar?"

"Whoa whoa whoa- you don't even know her!"

"She's been Henry's teacher for ten years!" Regina snapped, then put her hand over her face. "I mean she's been a teacher at Henry's school for ten years."

Emma found herself wondering at what age Mary Margaret started teaching but Regina interrupted her mental math.

"I feel like it shows a lack of loyalty to me to be more concerned about your roommate than your lover."

"My lover?" Emma raised an eyebrow. "Okay, _lover_. How about you show some loyalty to ME and we go on a public date? Or you not FREAK OUT at the idea someone knows we're dating? Or hey, maybe you could get out of the freaking closet and be an openly gay mayor?"

"You want us to be together publicly." Regina said. "You _want_ everyone to know you're with _me_?" She said it as though Emma wanted to publicly announce an addiction to meth.

"That would be the proudest day of my life, Regina."

Regina's eyes misted over, and she collapsed on the couch weakly. "I don't know what to say." She said after a beat. Emma sat next to her and took her hand, interlacing their fingers.

"I want that too Emma, but you have to understand the circumstances here are very…specific. I have a certain image I've upheld here and…but if we were to go somewhere maybe…" Regina turned to her, her eyes wet. "If I said you and me and Henry should uproot and go somewhere new, would you come? A fresh start, just the three of us. Would you try?"

Emma nodded wordlessly. "Yes, yes of course!" Regina' smile became radiant, she pulled out her phone.

"I'm looking up plane fares. You do realize we could get everything together and leave- in a month? A month at the earliest-"

"But- Regina- you do understand I can't leave until Kathryn has been found, and Mary Margaret's name has been cleared…you do see that, don't you?"

Regina's phone slipped from her hand and as she bent to pick it up Emma saw a wave of grief pass overher face. She rose to her feet, busily buttoning her trenchcoat, preparing to leave.

"You do see that Regina, come on."

"What I see is where your true loyalties lie." Regina hissed. "With that little simpering idiot. You'll regret choosing her over me, Emma. I promise you, you'll regret it."

The door slam shook the room as Regina went out.


	28. I'll Fix It

In the intervening silence between Emma and Regina, Emma was struck with a sense of loss that cut far, far past the physical frustration of not having their illicit cabin nights. She missed Regina's often cutting (but always searingly insightful) retorts. She missed her dry, crackling asides at a commercial or an acquaintance or just a passerby that shocked Emma into laughter and put a smile on her face days later when she remembered them again. Her wicked sense of humor, no one else in Storybrooke had anything close to hers.  
She missed the way Regina would talk about Henry. She missed Regina's more recent habit of telling her long, complicated anecdotes about Henry's earliest years- everyday milestones that until now no one had cared about as much as Regina, but which Emma found endlessly fascinating. Henry's first trip to the zoo, the disastrous first forays into toilet training, the time a cat fell asleep on his lap as a toddler and he held perfectly still rather than wake the animal.  
More than anything else, she missed someone who knew her. Ruby sort of did, but it wasn't the same. It was as though Regina could look straight through to her brain sometimes (although she seemed entirely obtuse when it came to reading her heart.)  
Whenever she saw a dark-haired woman Emma's heart would skip a beat. The low profile of a Benz seemed to move like a phantom in and out of her rearview. She found herself waking up in the middle of the night thinking she'd heard her phone chime. But Regina stayed away.

* * *

"A heart in a box. Its unthinkable." Ruby said, her face white and framed starkly by her hot pink snuggie as she lay on the couch, staring blankly at the TV. "If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it was possible."

She had been crying for the last three hours.

"I'm so sorry, Ruby.I was trying to return the favor and get you a job away from Granny's- no offense, Granny."  
Granny, in an armchair flipping through channels, grunted in response.

"Well, you may have cracked the case. There's fingerprints on the lid, apparently." Emma held up her phone. "They're analyzing them now."

Ruby shuddered.

When Emma left she couldn't suppress her feeling of buoyancy. The case was about to close, at least where Mary Margaret was concerned. The fingerprints would exempt her, she'd be released from jail, and then….she slipped into the Game of Thorns flower shop. Sometimes it wasn't about who was right. Sometimes it was just about who was willing to say sorry first.

Emma showed up on Regina's doorstep right around the time Henry was at one of his sessions with Archie. Her hands almost shook as she held the giant spray of pink flowers. She held them in front of her face as Regina slowly approached her own front door, one eyebrow up, and then pulled them aside.

"Boo." Emma said cheerfully, with all the levity she could muster.

"Sheriff Swan." Regina looked vaguely annoyed, but was analyzing the flowers with interest. "Are those…"

"Apple blossoms." Emma said, handing them to her. Regina looked a little amused and smelled one of the pinky-white blossoms.

"They're beautiful. Spring in the middle of winter." She said simply, then glared at Emma. "What do you want?"

"I wanted to say that I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Regina, if I made you feel like I chose my roommate over you the other night. It was a huge gesture for you to ask me to move away with you and Henry. I hope I made it clear how happy that made me before I changed the subject to my roommate. Because while I may be concerned about Mary Margaret's situation and I do want to see it resolved, the person I can't live without is you."

Emma shifted her weight from one foot to the other as Regina stood before her in silence.

Regina looked at the flowers again, touching them lovingly with her gloved hand. "I need to put these in water. Will you come in?"

Emma followed her vaguely humming with excitement.

The blossoms seemed to glow in Regina's stark, rather sterile house. She put them in a large sleek vase and carried them into the living room, Emma trailing behind her.

"So you do want to move away with me." Regina asked, not meeting her eyes.

"As soon as we can, since I think Mary Margaret's case will be resolved soon."

"Oh?" Regina sat on the couch. "What makes you think that?"

"We found a heart with fingerprints,so we have a lead on who the killer actually is."

Regina looked into the middle distance. Emma sat beside her and sighed.

"Look I don't want to talk about that right now, I want to talk about our new place. I want to talk about how to tell Henry, I want to talk about –"

"Did you know-" Regina interrupted her. "That with fruit trees, you can graft a branch of one sort of species onto the tree of another, and the two will combine to bear a new kind of fruit?"

"Uh, no, I didn't…"

Regina leaned forward and touched the apple blossoms. "I recently had a great deal of my apple tree exposed by a certain rather insane visitor so now might be my chance to see if I can…improve my long-nourished apple tree. If maybe I can make it grow sweeter. I don't think I've seen blossoms like this before. I'd hate to see them fall without knowing what they could turn into."

Emma put her hand on Regina's knee, feeling as always the lightning-like charge when they made contact. "Regina, you have to know, have to be able to feel that I-"

"Hush." Regina said, turning on her fiercely. "I haven't accepted your apology yet, and I need a little more convincing." There was an edge to her voice that was making Emma's knees week.

"Oh? And how can I convince you?"

Regina tapped her leg.

* * *

She didn't have her heels. She didn't have any music. Yet somehow undressing in Regina's house as the woman watched in silence was even more atmospherically charged, taking her jacket off, pulling up her white t-shirt, flipping her badge onto the ground. Regina pulled her jean zipper down with her teeth and then started kissing a trail up her stomach as her hands worked to unhook her bra and then her mouth seared the delicate skin between her-

Her phone went off. They ignored it. It went off again. They ignored it.

"DAMN." Emma groaned, moving off Regina. "Sheriff Swan. Fingerprint analysis! Hey, you're done already! So were they on file?"

Emma walked to the edge of the room, padding on bare feet over the gray marble floor.

"They're…a match? A match for Mary Margaret's fingerprints? No. Check them again. You're wrong. …I see. Boston experts agree….well…I just…" Emma felt her face flood with heat. "Alright. I'll be back at the station in twenty minutes." She hung her phone and turned to Regina, her face a mask of horror. Regina looked like she was bracing herself against terrible news.

"Looks like you were right." Emma's face crumpled and she fell down onto the couch and sobbed. She felt embarrassment in the moment, crying like this in front of Regina. God, of all the things- of all the places to be blindsided like this. "She's a- she- God, and I trusted her! I believed in her so much! Me with my stupid SUPER POWER." Emma couldn't hold in the sobs. They were rattling her too deeply. She felt Regina's arms cradle her, silent and supportive.

"Shhh, Emma, shh….its okay."

"I was so, so wrong. Its like…its like I'm just too freaking broken to live in the world sometimes. Its like…I'm just so sick of being wrong."

"It was about Mary Margaret?"

"Her fingerprints were on the box with kathryn's heart in it. How else? How else would that…and I trusted her! And…God its such an awful world sometimes. Its such a lonely freaking can you trust anyone? You know nothing. You never know someone."

"No." Regina said, her voice strong. "No Emma, you know people. You were wrong one time, that's not the end of the world-"

"Don't you get it?! _I lived with her_. I lived with her night and day and I was so sure I knew her and she was- she was someone else the whole time. And I'm so freaking broken I couldn't tell." Emma found herself clinging to Regina as she cried, a foreign but weirdly luxurious position, being held against Regina's chest.

"Shhh, no. You're not broken, Emma. You're not wrong. Sometimes things look…very dark but…you weren't wrong to care about your friend, whoever she was."

Emma covered her face with her hands, knowing her face was a red, snotty mess.

"I just…I just want to stop my heart from feeling anything ever, you know? If I could just flip a freaking switch."

Regina looked very worried. "If you were wrong about Mary Margaret, would that make you happy? Would that make you believe in yourself again?"

"Me believing in someone is basically like, proof they're a supervillain. Every time I try to believe in someone it goes so, so, so fucking wrong."

"Not anymore." Regina whispered into her hair. "Will you just trust me, Emma? You're so strong, and you have so much love inside you." She kissed the top of Emma's head, her voice stronger. " Its going to get fixed, okay? I promise."

Emma sat up and laughed, partly at her own messy face. "What's so weird is when you say it like that I believe it."

"Then believe this: its going to be okay. You aren't wrong about Mary Margaret. There will be another explanation. You are always right when you love someone. There's never wrong where there's love, okay?"

"Okay." Emma said. "Okay."


	29. I Need to Know

Kathryn was found behind Granny's: alive, well, if slightly disheveled. She said she couldn't remember anything. Emma watched her roommate, after a very long shower, move around their kitchen like a figure in a dream, her hands shaking violently.

"I can't believe I'm back." Mary Margaret whispered, letting herself sink onto a stool. "I really thought for a while there…thanks for having faith in me Emma. Even David doubted me… but you stayed loyal."

Emma felt guilty at the praise, but it was only one of a swirl of confused and negative feelings pecking at her mind like a swirl of ravens. "I just don't understand. In all my years searching for people no one has ever turned up like this before. Short term amnesia?"

Mary Margaret shrugged as Emma continued. " There's no explanation for how she left and no explanation for how she returned." Emma poured a cup of black coffee and popped an aspirin. "And how the _hell_ did they mix up Kathryn's heart with a chimpanzee heart? They initially told me it was a human adult heart with Kathryn's blood type. They even confirmed the DNA of the tissue was a match for the sample of Kathryn's hair DNA we took from her hairbrush. Now they say it's a chimpanzee heart. Someone in the lab is doing some epically shoddy lab work."

Mary Margaret shuddered delicately. "I honestly…just don't care today. I just want to take a long, long nap in a real bed."

"Of course." Emma said gently.

Emma called Regina as soon as Mary Margaret had tucked in and waited for the smooth, laughing voice to pick up at the other end.

"Mayor Mills."

"Hey Regina, I have really good- and kind of crazy- news. Kathryn has turned up, alive and well. Turns out Mary Margaret isn't a murderer after all."

Regina's voice was smooth, comforting, even warm (for Regina). "See? I told you. You were right after all. Now are you going to start packing?"

Emma felt thunderstruck by the smoothness of Regina's reply. "Don't you…like, want to go see her? Your friend Kathryn?! She's in the hospital."

"Of course I'll go see her." Regina sounded amused. "If they're even letting people see her right now. It might confuse her even more."

"How did you know she was confused?" Emma asked.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "I'd say that was a safe assumption to make if she hasn't given you a lead on who kidnapped her by now."

"Kidnapped her…" Emma breathed. Why did she feel this sudden, soul-harrowing conviction Regina knew exactly what had happened to Kathryn? She wouldn't.  
Even if she had, Emma didn't care.

Emma pulled the phone away from her ear, as though it was a viper. Was she really willing to accept that? Accept that her- whatever Regina was to her- had actually kidnapped someone? Or at least, not question that?

"Are you there?! Emma, hello!"

" ."

"Now that the Mary Margaret situation has been fixed, I assume this means you'll take the real estate listings I send you seriously."

Emma felt her throat go dry. "So you…fixed it."

Regina paused on the other end of the line. "Emma, stop changing the subject. Get on your email and look at this rental house I found in South Carolina. The school system is superb…"

"Regina, did you have ANYTHING to do with Kathryn's disappearance." The words came out in a rush.

A long silence on the other end of the phone.

"If you did, its okay-" Emma felt her cheeks burn even as she said it. "I wouldn't leave you, Regina. I just want to know. I just want you to tell me the truth. "

"The truth?" Regina's voice was shaking. "The truth is, the second the opportunity for us to have something real comes along, you start fighting again. You start finding reasons not to distrust and hate me. You say you want us to publicly be a couple and now you're accusing me- of what, I'd like to know. Of framing your roommate? Is that what you're saying?" Regina's voice was wild with pain and anger.

"Yes." Emma whispered. "But I'm telling you, I still choose you. I just need to know you trust me."

"Well, that's a crazy thing to say." Regina snapped. "You honestly think that of me? My own son thinks I'm the Evil Queen and you- you think I'm…"

The evil Queen. Henry's instincts got jangled, just like hers. Something in Regina, something under the surface, something powerful and dark and undeniable. She felt it twist in her sub conscious, a knowing she couldn't frame in the reality she knew.

"I think you fixed it." Emma said. She was sitting on the floor. How had she gotten there. "Tell me I'm wrong."

The phone clicked off.

* * *

Regina gasped when Emma came through the French doors that led from the office to the backdoor. She jerked herself up, wiping the mascara tears off her cheeks.

"Regina, I-"

Emma started towards Regina, her own eyes full of tears. "I'm so sorry Regina, I'm so sorry. Maybe I am afraid of how real this is getting. I don't know why I'd say things like that to you. I take it all back."

Regina looked at her, confused, one eyebrow cocked, defensive.

"Let's get our house. I looked at it. I don't have half the deposit yet but I will in another couple weeks. Let's do this."

"Miss Swan, you realize you've just broken into my house?"

"Stop it, Regina, I said I'm sorry-"

"You're lucky Henry's at school-"

"Regina-" Emma whispered, and her arms wound around the small, angry woman, who seemed to vibrate in her arms with rage.

"Don't-" Regina tensed.

Emma held her face in both hands. "Let me do this, Regina. I have to know."

She moved her lips towards Regina, forcing it, her hand behind Regina's head, and suddenly was knocked by a powerful, stinging blow as Regina slapped her full across the face. She went limp from shock at the impact and staggered back a few steps, clutching the side of her face, staring at Regina.

"Not…yet…Emma." Regina said, her breath coming in gasps. "Not until…we're out of here."

Emma held her gaze for a very long time, and then walked out of the house.


	30. Whatever They Tell You

Mary Margaret slammed her door as Emma finished packing, and Emma knew it was the most confrontational gesture her roommate could manage. They had had a huge fight about whether Emma was leaving for Henry's sake or for her own- well, Mary Margaret had used her stern teacher voice. Couldn't she just be relieved that Emma was going? It wasn't like Emma had been very good company in the two weeks since she and Regina had had their last fight. Regina had left many apologetic texts that first week, and Emma couldn't bring herself to reply. So Regina had retaliated the way she always did, by denying Emma the right to see Henry – which meant Emma and Henry had to find covert ways to see each other five minutes at a the ideal circumstances to explain to the kid that she was thinking about moving out of town again. But at the rate she was going with Regina, she'd probably end up seeing Henry more if she was out of town and not crossing swords with his mom on a regular basis. Or exchanging blows.

She knocked on Regina's door without calling first. Regina's face stayed impassive when she told her she was leaving.

"Whatever this is between us- has to end."

"Alas, something we agree on."

It cut. It hurt. She wanted Regina to say no. But Regina acted weirdly aloof, even sending her out the door with a piece offering, an apple turnover. Emma let her eyes travel up Regina's figure one last time, as though memorizing the woman who had dominated her mind for so long, and when she got back into her car, she lay her forehead on the top of her steering wheel. Could she really drive away? Her phone chimed, and angry at herself, she looked at the messages:

_I now understand why you liked that stupid song so much_

_Before you came into my life I missed you so bad_

_I missed you so so bad_

_I can't let you go, Emma. Forgive me._

Emma watched her tears fall onto her lap, her hands in fists.

* * *

In less than 8 hours, Henry was in the hospital.

Regina ran into the small Storybrooke ER, for once completely discomposed. Her face was wild, her eyes raw, her hands twitching. She flew past doctors and nurses, straight for Emma, who met her panic with a dark glance of rage, and without another word swept Regina into a medical closet.

"What DID YOU DO?!" Emma roared, grabbing Regina's small, taught shoulders and throwing her against a cabinent. "Henry ate that turnover. What was in there?!"

"It was meant for you…" Regina whispered. Her face darkened, and tears started slipping down her cheeks.

"OBVIOUSLY." Emma growled, feeling the pain all over again. "You tried to kill me and now Henry is going to-what do we do?!"

"Not kill." Regina dragged her fingers through her hair. "I was trying to stop you from leaving. I thought you would eat it and – it would subdue you, and I was going to take you to South Carolina and break the curse from there, where we'd be safe."

"Break the curse? What?You were going to- I-"

Regina's eyes were raw, her lip shaking. She grabbed Emma's hand, and though Emma knew she should pull away, she seized up instead, staring at Regina through tears.

"If you want to help Henry, you need to kiss me."

"You are out of your mind." Emma hissed through gritted teeth, her arm pressing into Regina's collar bones, holding the woman in a lock like a wrestler.

"Ms Swan. Listen to me. I need you to kiss me."

Emma could read Regina, and she wasn't lying. She wasn't being coy, she was being more serious and earnest than Emma had ever seen her. Emma felt an inkling of understanding fill her, but didn't want to admit what she was starting to understand.

"That will 'fix' this?" she whispered.

Regina's head tilted back, her eyes swimming in tears.

"Yes." Regina whispered. "I've wanted this for the longest time but the reason I couldn't…"

"Shut up. Just shut up." Emma said, almost angry at the thick wave of desire that was pulling her under as she hovered close to Regina, and at long last covered Regina's red beautiful mouth with hers.

Regina melted into her arms. The first sensation was all breath and the natural electricity that had sparked between them for months, and then something crazy, something tangible that made Emma's eyes open. They were surrounded in the small closet by a web of blue and purple lightning. A pulse, as unmistakably large and meaningful as an earthquake, seemed to shoot out from Emma's heart.

In a timeless moment she could see a kaleidoscope of images, in jewel-bright colors but with the blurred vague sense of dread that had filled her nightmares as a child. An image of Regina, yet not as she had ever seen her before, dressed in a rich purple satin dress that clung to her body, her black hair long and regal, a crown on her head, a look of intense pain on her face. Loneliness shot through Emma at the image, fear and again, younger, her face fuller, her eyes brighter, curling branches around her arms and legs, her brightness turning to fear and powerlessness. A girl, who looked eerily like Mary Margaret, her face a mask of rage. None of it made sense, nothing did in this moment. Emma gripped onto Regina's waist to keep steady, and closed her eyes again, letting herself vanish into the visceral sensation of Regina's lips moving against hers, which wiped away everything else and made her return to the unthinkable moment they were caught in, as every part of her body hummed with a powerful sensation she'd never felt before.

When their faces parted, Regina looked as terrified and overwhelmed as Emma felt. With one hand, and with a tenderness Emma had never felt before, Regina cupped the side of Emma's face, and stared as though memorizing her features. "I have to hide now. Henry should be okay. Emma, whatever they say about me…I _do_ love you."

Regina shot out of the closet before Emma could reply. Emma stumbled towards Henry's bed, wher a crowd had gathered around the boy, who was sitting upright and rubbing his eyes.

"The curse…it happened…and its broken…" Emma heard Dr. Whale say.

"How did this happen? The Queen…we must get the Queen…"

Emma put a hand to her lips, and then ran to Henry's bedside, throwing her arms around him.

"You did it! You broke the curse." Henry said. "But how?!"

Emma was at a loss for words, but swallowed hard and forced out the only thing she could think to say. "Kid, we have to go find your mom."


	31. I Became What I Was

Emma steered carefully through the streets- every few minutes someone shot right through the road, as though running after some lost dog. In reality, people coming to from the curse were running, literally running out of their houses, shops, schools, businesses. They tore through the streets blindly, calling the names of those they loved.. Emma could understand. She was doing the same thing now, scanning the streets for the Benz or the sharply upright form of Regina. Henry, next to her, was playing with his hospital wristband.

"We should go find Grandma." Henry said, looking at her with huge eyes.

"Grandma?" Emma blinked.

"Snow White! You know- Miss Blanchard?"

_My roommate. Right. My roommate is also my mother._ Emma felt her mouth go dry and pulled off to the side of the road. She cracked her door and dry heaved into the street. Henry was, for once, stunned into silence. The Bone Rangers. _Thank goodness we never actually did that freaking dance or…this is so effed up._

"She's really nice, you know." He said at last.

"I know kid, I know, it's just…it's a lot to take in."

"But I've been keeping you up to date all along with Operation Cobra!" _Operation Music Box_. Emma stared at him. Sometimes he made little gestures that were so obviously from Regina it wrung her heart out. Now was one of those moments. He had both fists clenched. "I told you again and again…"

"Henry, I recognize that you were right, but you have to understand, hearing what happened here and coming to terms with it in reality are two very different things."

Henry sat up in his seat, pointing. "There they are! Grandma and grandpa!"

Emma followed his line of sight to Mary Margaret and David Nolan, holding each other tight in the middle of the street. Mary Margaret looked so different- her eyes sharper, her smile more joyful. Even the way she stood- she barely recognized her. David Nolan was kissing her again and again.

She heard it before she saw it, a dark bass rumble like a wave right before it crashes. Purple smoke rolling over them. Emma threw herself over Henry as it fell over the car.

_I'm going to wake up from this._ Emma promised herself, trying to block out the weird electric smell of the purple fog. _Its official, this is a nightmare._

Where would Regina even go? Not back to her house if she was trying to hide. The cabin?

Emma looked up. The smoke was still washing over the bug, making the windshield and windows glow with purple as though they'd been spray painted. She knew she was shaking. Get it together. Henry's still probably in shock himself. Get it together.

She cracked open the car and stepped out in to the street. She and Mary Margaret locked eyes. Not Mary Margaret. Mom?

The small woman's arms were around her in an instant and Emma was sobbing. Henry threw his arms around David Nolan. It wasn't a reunion. In a way, Emma almost felt as though she'd lost her best friend in Storybrooke, because whoever this Snow White was, she was nothing like Mary Margaret, Emma could feel it from just her cool assessing gaze as her eyes passed over Emma.

"You came back to us." Snow White said, a strong hand around her arm.

Emma heard her phone chime in her pocket and plucked it off her wais band with trembling hands.

_Don't let Henry go back to the house. It's not safe there._

Emma felt a surge of relief.

_Where r u?!_

_Underland. It's the last place they'll look for me. _

_Wiat 4 me?!_

_Come after dark. Tell no one._

Emma pushed the phone back in her belt as her 'father' swept her into his arms. A few moments into the hug she saw a thin body pulling itself along the street, dragging itself with great effort along the rough asphalt, a blaze of red hair obscuring the young woman's face.

"Oh my God, Shelley…" Emma tore away from David and hurried toward Shelley, who had pulled herself out of a car, a scaly tail pulling along behind her, a few of its scales already ripped by the asphalt and leaving red spots of jewel-tone red blood amongst the green, her whole body shaking with effort. Shelley looked up, her eyes huge, her lips flaking with dryness.

"Help me." She croaked up at Emma, who nodded dumbly. She caught the small girl (although her long tail was heavy and awkward) up in her arms and slid her into the passenger seat.

"I'll be right back, I've got to get her to the hospital-." She said to Snow White. Snow White shook her head.

"Not the hospital. Get her to water fast." Snow said.

Emma slid into Shelley's battered used car and put the keys in the ignition with shaking hands.

* * *

It was a short trip to the beach, but cars had been stranded in the streets, and pedestrians flying off the sidewalks didn't help. Emma found herself nervously comforting Shelley, who had fallen into a stupor.

"It's going to be okay, Shelley."

"Ariel. My name is Ariel. Eric is…" her hands went up to her face, fluttering, their skin already growing blotchy and dry. "He's getting married tomorrow…"

"Well, I bet he and his fiancée take a rain check on that shit." Emma said darkly, skidding around an abandoned Ford.

"I won't be able to find him now."

"Sure you will."

"It's going to be cold in that water." Ariel whispered.

Emma looked at her, her eyes wild. "Will you be okay?"

"For a while." Ariel gulped. She let out a sharp laugh. "Its really weird, its like I want to cry but my my eyes are too dry."

Emma drove up onto the pier, which was empty for once, and the car screeched to a halt on the wooden boards above the dark Maine water. The air was cold, Emma trembled to think what the water was like, but cradled Ariel as best she can and led her to the edge of the pier. Ariel nodded and fell silently down, then leapt back up, whipping her hair back, instantly rejuvenated by the contact with the water (although Emma noticed goosebumps along her arms.)

"Will you tell Eric?" Ariel said, her pale fingers clutching up toward Emma. Emma took her hands. "Who is he?"

"My regular, Derek." Ariel squeezed her hands. "Tell him I became what I was again and I'll understand if that means…" her words stopped. "I'll understand."

Before Emma could reply, she felt the deep pull of something under the water. It was Ariel's tail underneath her pulling the girl down deep into the darkness below, and watched her vanish without a trace into the murkiness of the cold water.

Did she see...or did she imagine...long black tentacles rising from the waves in the distance?


	32. Lucky You

Emma glared up at the sky, wishing she could will it darker as she walked, arms linked through Snow and Charming's arms, towards Granny's diner. Throngs of people were inside and several of the nuns were partnering with the dwarves to set up folding tables outside. The diner had always been an informal town meeting hall, and now more than ever people wanted to be close to each other, to confer, to plan, to be okay. Emma found herself almost running over to Ruby, and enfolding her in a long hug.

"You okay?" Ruby asked. Emma didn't know how to answer.

"Ruby, what do you know about Shelley's old regular? How can I get in touch with him?"

"Derek? Or actually he's…" Ruby shook her head. "He's Prince Eric."

"Right." Emma said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "Of course he is. Do you know how I can get in touch with him?"

Ruby shook her head. "Zelda might know but...she's kind of having a situation" she gestured over her shoulder. A grim looking older woman was holding Zelda fiercely by the scruff of her recently- cut blonde hair and glowering at her.

"You are in so much trouble, Rapunzel. When I get you back to the Enchanted Forest-" The woman was hissing at her.

"Get OFF of me. I have RIGHTS."

"She certainly does." Emma snapped, pulling her sheriff's badge off her belt and holding it high. The woman holding Rapunzel's braid laughed. "Let go of the girl, ma'am or I'll arrest you for abuse of a minor."

"I don't know if you've noticed, but Storybrooke has changed, dear. 'Sheriff' means nothing here."the woman snarled, and as if to prove a point twisted Zelda's head at an even crueler angle.

"How about 'Princess'?" Snow White said crisply, standing behind Emma. Emma felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise and watched, amazed, as the grim woman's face filled with fear and she sank to her knees. Snow White looked at Emma.

"This is a friend of yours, Emma?"

Emma nodded and Zelda crossed over to them in a few shaky steps, wiping smudged eyeliner from the corner of her arms. Emma awkwardly patted her arm.

"It's okay, Rapunzel. You don't have to go back with your mom if you don't want to."

"Call me Zelda, please." Zelda was still wearing tight jeans and a Pixie's shirt. "I don't- I don't want to be anyone else but Zelda."

* * *

Zelda gave her Eric's number, but despite her texts and messages, he definitely wasn't answering his phone. Emma gave herself a small hiatus to keep her mind from unraveling. It was hard just to reconcile Snow White with Mary Margaret. This new woman moved around the crowd with the finesse of a seasoned politician, clasping hands and talking confidently and assertively about the "next step" they would all take. Emma picked at the pile of food Ruby put in front of her, going through the day in her mind and furtively hoping she would wake up, until Snow White had finished her rounds and was free to turn the full force of her stern blue gaze on her daughter, sitting down across from her at a booth that was seemingly reserved for the "Royal Family."

"We always knew you would come back when you were 28, break the curse and defeat the Evil Queen. You are not just the Princess, Emma, you are this town's Saviour." Snow said, holding Emma's hand delicately. "As soon as I felt the pulse I knew you'd come back to us. So how did you do it? How did you break the curse?"

Okay, this was awkward. Emma looked from Snow to Prince Charming, who sat next to her, a slight smile on his face.

"You know what, I'm really not sure exactly how it all went down but… You know Henry was in the hospital, I think I texted you about that-"

Snow beamed at Henry, who was a few feet away, deep in conversation with Granny and Marco, his Storybook spread wide and his finger pointing out different illustrations on its pages.

"After _Regina_ poisoned him." Snow White said darkly, and Prince Charming put his arm around her.

"We must find the Queen and neutralize her for the safety of the Kingdom." Charming put a solid fist on the table. "That is our first responsibility to our people."

"Hey, what? Neturalize her? Whoa whoa whoa, let's not jump into mob mentality. Have you seen what they did to her house?" Emma cast a sideways glance at Henry, dropping her voice to a whisper, hoping he hadn't heard. On the way back from the pier she had made a detour by the Mayoral mansion and found a bloodthirsty crowd looting the place. The shutters and door had been pulled off the façade and were burning n a bonfire on the front lawn. "We're lucky she hasn't been killed already. If anything, we should find her and get her out of harm's way until people calm down."

"Emma. Listen to me." Snow's eyes held her daughter's steadily. "Regina is not who you think she is. She's the Evil Queen who cost us our family and who trapped everyone in this town in perpetual misery. There is no good in that woman."

Emma felt a pang deep in her gut, remembering their kiss and the images of Regina in some far off other life that had filled her at that pain in Regina's eyes in those shared memories was one she understood better than she could explain.

"Regina broke the curse." Emma said, setting her hands flat on the table, willing them not to ask her for specifics. "It was her choice to use me to break the curse, and she did it to save my son."

Charming and Snow exchanged a glance, and Emma continued, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice.

"I don't know what your past experiences have been but I am not going to sign off on her getting killed by an angry mob. If for no other reason than because that would destroy Henry. I won't allow it. I just won't."

"Emma…" Snow delicately cleared her throat. "I don't know why you think Regina chose to break the curse, but trust me when I say she is incapable of love. She certainly doesn't love Henry. But she will use him against you. She will use your own ability to love and forgive against you, the same way she did to me. Every time you reach out to her, she will strike. There's a reason she was known as the Evil Queen back in our land."

"Yeah, well, maybe that's why she came here." Emma said simply, and abruptly got up from the table.

* * *

Underland looked different in the dark. They must have run Ursula well and truly out of business, for not even the motion light shone in the back parking lot. From far away the building looked like some sort of monster crouching in the shadows of the tall pines. From closer up, it looked like a crime scene, windows shuttered, litter strewn across the lawn. Emma tried the front door, it was chained. She went around to the back and the metal door swung in under her hands.

"Regina?" she called. Only one dim red light shone, from inside room 1, a curvy line of light escaping under the thick dark curtain. She could hear Thom Yorke crooning and opened the curtain to see Regina sitting on the leather back chair like a defeated leader in a throne, waiting for the conquerors to breach the palace. Her black silky blouse gaped in places, her hair was elegantly mussed, one leg was draped over the arm of the chair, and her empty eyes were staring at a bottle of warm champagne in her hand that Emma guessed she was well on her way to finishing.

"Regina!" Emma gasped. Regina looked up, and the bottle fell from her hands. It spun lazily on its side in a circle. REgina stood, and clenched her hands together.

"Thank you for coming." Regina blinked fast. "I wanted to explain before I left."

"Oh, so you're leaving now?" Emma managed. She put the tinfoil-covered tray of macaroni and cheese she'd smuggled away from Granny's on a chair pulled to the side of the booth. "Hungry?"

"I'm okay." Regina looked at the pan of food warily. "Who gave you that?"

Emma sighed. "No one, I took it with me from Granny's."

Regina looked surprised, and then managed a smile. Her lips were not their characteristic wine color, Emma realized with the faintest of butterfly feelings that she had kissed Regina's lipstick away all those hours earlier. "Thank you for that." Regina said softly.

"So what, you're just going?" Emma asked, crossing her arms.

"I can't perform magic anymore." Regina's hands were white at the knuckles. "Right now I'm defenseless. I trust I can tell you this? If I go now, I hope you will let me come back for Henry, when I've gotten a home ready for him."

"Regina…" Emma felt herself choke a little. "What happened back there? How- why did the curse break?"

Regina met her eyes. "You already know that."

"Say it." Emma whispered.

"The kiss of True Love. It broke the curse." Regina said with a long, heavy sigh. "Congratulations, Savior, the undeniable fact is that your True Love is the Evil Queen." She let out a rueful laugh. "Lucky, lucky you."


	33. A Final Proposal

"I happen to think that makes me very lucky, actually." Emma almost spat out, unsure where the anger came from. At the world for not understanding Regina? Or at Regina for constantly lashing out at the world?

Regina cocked her head, looking at her, rising from her black leather armchair and walking unsteadily toward her, as always bringing the cloud of sweet perfume with her, and the almost electric energy of her presence. "You don't know yet, do you? I'm the bad guy, Emma. I'm the hag in every fairy tale you read growing up .I'm the monster under the bed you were afraid of and I'm the dragon you were meant to slay. Do you get it yet? Can you wrap your mind around it? We are the last two people who can be together." Regina's face was dark with rage, her eyes scanning Emma's face.

"Regina, when we kissed I- I saw you. I saw you as you were." Emma. Regina breathed in quickly. "You were so alone. There was so much pain for so long, so much isolation eating away at you…How? How did I see you?"

"I'm not sure but I saw you too, Ms. Swan. I saw you as a child and I…I also felt..." she put a hand toward Emma and retracted it as though afraid. "I wish I had known you were coming, Ms. Swan. I would have been a better person for you." Her voice broke.

She had been, and was, Emma knew, wholly selfish. But selfishness, Emma knew from personal experience, was the refuge of those who were truly without friends or family, who had to fend for themselves. Regina had hurt, even terrorized people to get closer to Emma. She was possessive, because everything had always slipped through her fingers. She had moved worlds to start fresh and try and have a family, and yet she was still completely alone, abandoned by the son she had loved and shunned by the city she had kind of person would Regina be if she finally got what she wanted? That most simple basic thing, the same thing Emma had always looked for.

Emma grabbed Regina's hand in both of hers and pressed it savagely to her mouth, unable to resist healing the woman's shaking insecurity with the firm warmth of her lips. Almost at once, a pall of gold light spread over Regina's hand. Regina stepped back.

"What did you do…" her eyes were drying.

"Nothing, I-"

Regina raised her hand and a small flame came out and spun in a circle, effortlessly, at her fingertips. She looked at Emma.

"You gave me my magic back." A murderous smile started spreading over her face. "Oh, wait until I get back to Storybrooke…"

"Regina…" Emma said warningly, grabbing both her shoulders. "No, Regina. No. You can't just go kill all of Storybrooke."

"Oh, can't I?!" Regina snarled.

"Not if you really love me." Emma said fiercely. "Do you or don't you, Regina?!"

Regina looked from the flame to Emma, obviously entranced by the sense of power that was flooding through her with the sudden return of her magic. Emma clenched her jaw, her stomach turning to ash inside her. _When you reach out to her,she will strike you_, echoed repeatedly in her mind. What was she thinking, being here alone with Regina? Was this what Regina had wanted, bringing her here- did she know her touch would bring her magic back? She fought to keep the fear out of her eyes.

And then wordlessly, the fire disappeared from Regina's hand. She put both of her hands up and looked at Emma, and said with great effort:

"I really do."

Emma let out a sob of relief and in a step had her in her arms, crushing Regina to her,covering her mouth again with hers, feeling the thrill again of finally meeting mouth to mouth. The explosion of the meeting between them was incredible, and Emma heard with a warm surge of triumph the soft little moan of Regina and felt her fingers burying themselves in her hair, caressing her waist, hiding deep in her jean pockets.

Suddenly, the scrape of rings on the curtain rod behind them made Emma whip her head around to see Snow White staring at them both, her mouth a hard line.

"I thought you'd lead us to her." Snow said, her voice icy. "I so wish I had been wrong."

Emma pushed Regina behind her but Regina snarled and two fireballs soon hovered above both palms.

"Now!" shouted Snow, and Mr. Gold shot past her, throwing a blast of purple lightning at Regina so close to Emma she could hear it burn through her leather jacket. Emma looked behind her and saw Regina trapped in a bubble of purple light.

"What are you doing to her!?" Emma screamed.

"It will hold her until we decide a fitting fate." Snow said. "Emma, I'm sorry, but I have to think about Storybrooke. She's using you."

"No, she's not." Emma yelled, and struck her hand through the ball of lightning. A golden glow dissolved the purple lighting easily, and Regina collapsed on the ground. She pulled herself up, her face past all recall, her voice a deep growl of rage. Emma put a hand on her shoulder and Regina peered at her, obviously trying to fight through the fury that gave her magic such power.

"You won't hurt her." Emma said. "I won't let you."

"She's the Evil Queen, Emma-" Snow pleaded.

"Not anymore." Emma snapped. "She's going to use her magic for good now."

"I'm what?" Regina turned on Emma, just as mad as Snow.

"You are going to use your magic to fix the problems here in Storybrooke, Regina. The curse breaking hurt as many people as it helped. Shelley, Zelda…there are a lot of happy endings that have to be sorted out before we can be happy."

Snow crossed her arms. "As much as I would like to believe Regina cares about other people's happy endings, there's only one thing that has ever made her happy and that's making others suffer."

"Well, now I make her happy." Emma felt her cheeks burn.

"_Very_ happy." Snarled Regina at Snow, with a sudden cheeky smile. "Happy like you wouldn't _believe_ Snow. Happy like Prince James doesn't even know _how to do_."

Snow clenched her fists and Emma gave Regina a warning look.

Mr. Gold cleared his throat. "This sounds like a deal to me. If Regina wants to stay alive, she must set everything to rights in Storybrooke."

"I'm not bargaining for my life, Gold, mere self-preservation is not my concern." Regina snapped. "You know quite well I can make myself disappear from here right now. The deal is this: if I can make all your happy endings return, then the Saviour is mine. In every sense of the word."

Emma's jaw slightly dropped. "Well, wait a second, I mean, I get some autonomy here, I'm not going to just agree to be your little cabin bound sex slave-"

Snow's face blanched.

Regina turned to Emma with a hunger in her eyes that made Emma's knees weak. "You _will_ be mine. I will have your hand in marriage according to the laws of both our lands and you will belong to _no one else but me_. As I will belong to you." Regina was using an imperious tone Emma had never heard before. And it was sort of turning her on.

"Even if we agree to this deal, we can't speak for everyone in Storybrooke. People are going to attempt to take the Queen's life and it's going to end up badly for her or its going to end up badly for t hem. She has to stay here until she's fixed everything, or I can't vouch for her safety."

Regina nodded. "Very well. I will stay here until I have won the Saviour's hand."

"And don't think for a _moment_ that this means I approve of you and Emma." Snow said, drawing herself up to her full height. "The only reason I'm agreeing to this is because I _know_ you will fail. Your heart is too dark to love and unfortunately Emma has to learn that lesson firsthand but I know what you are. And when you betray her, the way you betrayed me, she will _destroy you_ for once and for all."

Regina, still clearly a little buzzed from champagne, laughed in Snow's face. "This world taught me exactly the word for you, Snow White, and it's 'cockblocker'."

Emma heard her phone chime, and sheepishly took a step away to check the message.

_Sheriff Swan this is Eric, I hear you have news for me of my Ariel._


	34. The Triton

_Plz apparate_

Emma sat leaning against the hood of her bug, looking out to sea, parked in Prince Eric's swooping driveway, waiting for Regina to respond to her text. The reality of her life had taken a few days to sink in, but still felt just as dreamlike as the first day the curse had broken. Before Snow could bundle her out of Underland, she had watched in amazement as Regina casually marched around the room, making her personal effects appear and shifting the building's interior into a smaller version of her mayoral home, purple smoke wrapping around one of the stages and leaving Regina's sat-swathed four-poster behind, luxurious clothes filling the booths once used for lap dances on padded hangers, the grimy red paint replaced with Regina's beloved black and white forest wallpaper. Regina had placed a final charm on Underland, a protection spell so only Emma could come and go freely.

"Not that you _should_ be visiting with her until she's _earned_ you." Snow had lectured in one of their late night talks. Emma, as always, resented having James sitting next to her mother during these discussions- at least Snow had lived with her for several months before assuming a familial role. James was a relative stranger, yet regularly chimed in with advice that Emma found hard to swallow.

"I'm an adult, Snow! A _consenting adult_!" Emma had snapped, and Snow gave her a worried look.

"Emma, I'm just trying to protect you. If Regina can't change- and that's a strong possibility- do you really want to deepen this relationship? Get more involved with someone who is…well, a psycho?"

Emma practically growled and Snow hurried on, "And what reason does she have to hurry up and make everyone's happy endings come true if you're…giving away the milk for free?"

That at least had chased James off the living room couch, he'd taken Henry out to the park.

Not that, curiously enough, Regina had invited her over recently. In the past three days the former Mayor had buried herself in string of appointments. She'd started with calling Jefferson and apologizing and reaching out on his behalf to Grace's parents, reuniting father and daughter. Then she'd arranged for Tiana and her Prince- a scuba diver in Storybrooke- to reunite. She'd found Hansel and Gretel's dad and also arranged for him to work Cinderella's family's fleet of cars, a huge income boost for him. She'd found Zelda's real parents by doing who knows what to the woman who had imprisoned Zelda for years, and left a tip for the dwarves as to where they could find magical diamonds.

Ruby had given her bottomless cups of cinnamon-spiked cocoa and sympathy whenever Emma couldn't stand being in her small apartment with her parents a moment longer and escaped to Granny's.

"I think its great that you found a way to make her use her powers for good but Emma…are you ready to like, get married? Nevermind that its Regina, just like…getting married the idea. Are you ready to settle down? How long have you even known each other?"

Emma found herself counting on fingers. "Siiiix-seven months."

"Yeah well, that's not a ton of time, okay? And, hey, lets talk about the fact it is Regina, aka the Evil Queen. It's not like you guys had some super healthy relationship. Isn't she super possessive and sort of crazy?"

For that, Emma could only shrug.

Her reverie was interrupted by a sound like rich fabric snapping in the wind beside Emma, and Regina appeared, purple smoke trailing away from her, buckled into a black trenchcoat, still pulling on one fitted leather glove.

"Hi." Emma said, unable as usual to figure out how to greet the woman so intent on having her. For all her possessiveness, Regina just wasn't a hugger. Regina, however, seemed to have her own idea of how to say hello, grabbing Emma's chin with one hand and then fiercely kissing Emma right on the lips. Emma's knees went weak and she almost collapsed against the hood of the car as Regina reached with one hand deep in her back pocket, squeezing her butt hard, and then trailed her lips to Emma's ear, nosing her face through the thick blonde curls until her breath fell hot on Emma's neck.

"Why am I not feeling any pantylines right now, Miss Swan?"

"Because I'm not wearing any panties." Emma gasped, unable to suppress a smile.

"Miss Swan, you are going to destroy me." Regina said into her ear, and pulled back, immediately professional again. "Now what are we doing here?"

"Shelley. I mean Ariel. Prince Eric took his boat out to the harbor and found her and is currently keeping her in a hot tub upstairs he's filled with sea water. We're hoping you can give her back her legs."

Regina raised one eyebrow. "Simple enough, I suppose. Or we could make Prince Eric a merman?"

Emma laughed and struck the knocker on the door. "With Maine's fishing industry? They'd be in tuna cans by the end of the week."

* * *

Prince Eric, after a wary look at Regina, led them through his ultra-modern luxury house to the third story bathroom, where Ariel sat in a purple bikini top, her fins waving gently above the water as she flipped through HGTV on a small television that was balanced on the lid of the toilet nearby. Her face lit up when Emma came in and she reached out her arms, the two hugged, and then she looked at Regina, who was walking casually hand in hand with Emma, with a suppressed smile.

"Is this your…?"

Emma nodded, sitting on the edge of the tub.

"Can you…" Ariel swept her hand towards her tail.

"Let's give it a try." Frowned Regina. "This is your true state, isn't it?"

Ariel nodded.

Regina waved a hand and Ariel was wrapped in purple smoke for a moment, it disappeared, leaving her tail unchanged.

"Just as I thought." Regina said darkly, in a tone like a disappointed doctor with a serious diagnosis. "We need something more powerful for this." She crouched by the tub and reached out a hand, taking Ariel's. "But don't give up hope. All I need is your father's Triton, and I think I know where to find it. I'll be back shortly."

Emma felt a little knot in her throat at Regina's kind tone toward Ariel. Emma had noticed since Regina started fixing happy endings, she'd grown warmer and softer in her tone and nature. She was quicker to laugh, more affectionate with Emma in public, as though her former bitter anger were a form of fatigue caused by the weight of her crimes. And as they diminished, so did her bitterness. Emma followed Regina back down to the parking lot, where the brunette turned to her with a worried look on her face.

"Her triton is in Gold's store. We're going to have to break in."

"Break in?" Emma crossed her arms. "Here's a slightly less evil idea: let's do Mr. Gold's happy ending first, and then he'll be so grateful he'll GIVE us the triton."

Regina's forehead creased between her eyebrows. "I'm not giving Mr. Gold his happy ending. I can't."

"That was the deal." Emma felt a pang of worry. "You can't pick and choose who gets their happy ending."

"This whole CURSE was Mr. Gold's doing, not mine." Regina volleyed back, her face taking on the angry expression that had been missing over the last few days. "Mr. Gold doesn't want a happy ending. He wants to control this world like he controlled the Enchanted Forest, and I can't let that happen."

"He gets his happy ending." Emma said, putting her hands on his hips.

"Why? Why are you suddenly so invested in Mr. Gold?! Who cares if he's happy?!" Regina, since she had started helping people, had also lost her habit of reacting to everything with lightning quick rage. But old habits die hard.

"It's not him." Emma whispered, getting her face close. "I just don't want to worry about some enemy lurking in the distance whose going to come and get you. I want us to just settle everything now and go forward with the rest of our lives."

Regina's sharp intake of breath was a gratifying sound, as though Emma had just swept her off her feet. "Okay." She murmured. "Let's go to Gold's store."


	35. Something for Nothing

It had been a while since Emma had gone in Gold's shop (she thought guiltily of the baby monitor she had slipped into a spittoon on a shelf near his register) but the air in it had changed, had gotten heavier. The whole place felt vaguely queasy and teaming with an uneasy, unnatural life. She knew it was biologically impossible but she felt like any minute a snake would shoot from under a display case and slither across the floor. Regina seemed to sense it too as she walked ahead of Emma into the shop, letting one arm drift behind her as though wanting to make sure the room was safe before briskly slapping the bell by Mr. Gold's register.

Mr Gold, hollows under his eyes, appeared and Emma felt her heart hammer in her chest.

"Well well well, to what do I owe the pleasure of a royal visit?" he said softly, knitting his fingers over the top of his cane.

"I just wanted to see how your hair looks now the curse is broken." Regina smirked. "I see you've kept up the flat-iron. Wise choice."

Emma resisted the urge to jab Regina meaningfully in the ribs. Mr Gold sighed heavily. "What do you want Regina? I know you wouldn't be here if you didn't want something."

"Actually,this time I'm here about something YOU want. Your happy ending." Regina said simply. "Because I can get that back for you."

"Can you?" Rumple laughed.

"I know where Belle is." Regina said, standing straighter.

Mr. Gold raised an eyebrow. "Oh really? Do you now? Let me guess. You think she's still at the asylum."

Regina looked, for once, surprised. "Wait…what?"

"She rejoined me when I brought magic back to Storybrooke, Regina. For a few brief days, yes, I had my happy ending, with no help from you. And then…Belle left."

Regina cocked her head, and Emma sensed her swallowing one of her usual tart remarks. _Can't say I blame her_ was written all over her face.

"After the way you imprisoned her, I'd think you'd drop the subject." Mr. Gold's smooth voice snarled at the last words, but Regina looked unintimidated. "Oh, so I guess you'd rather I made her desperately in love with someone else for 28 years?" she snapped.

Mr. Gold shook his head slightly. "I was spared that at least." He grumbled. Regina got in closer, leaning over the display counter. "What if I were to find Belle and convince her to come back to you?"

Rumple snorted.

"I can help too." Emma said, blinking rapidly. "I mean, I'm no relationship guru but I'd be willing to try-"

Mr Gold looked thoughtfully between the two of them. "So it's true? You- and the Saviour?"

Regina clenched her jaw and tightened one gloved hand into a fist. "Let's stick to the subject at hand, Gold."

"No no, I find it- rather encouraging, actually. After all, if an Evil Queen can convince a Princess to love her despite having a sticky lump of black tar for a soul, then maybe you could con Belle into being with me.

"If either of you were capable of talking Belle into giving me another chance, then yes, I would consider my happy ending restored. But what, may I ask, would your price be for this service?"

"An item from your shop." Regina spun around on one foot. "A three-pointed spear, gold, sort of gaudy, its got a 'Caesar's Palace' kind of thing going-"

"The Triton?" Mr Gold crossed his arms. "You do know if it gets into the hands of the one of the merfolk, they become by ancient rite ruler of the ocean? And that this ocean, last time I checked, didn't have a monarchy? Could be sort of dangerous."

"As dangerous as that time you brought magic back to Storybrooke?" Regina kept her tone barely civil. "Look Gold, I'm setting things to rights. I just want to help a friend with the triton, then I'll bring it right back. I'm not trying to start some maritime mutiny, trust me. I like my crabs deep fried, not singing to me about where I should live."

"Quite." Mr. Gold pulled a roll of parchment from a shelf and waved his fingers over it. Dense writing in intricate calligraphy blossomed over its surface. "Here's our deal. Belle for the Triton."

Emma caught Regina's lean arm as she reached for a pen. "Um- Mr. Gold, we're going to read this through, if you don't mind."

Regina's eyebrows raised delicately, as Emma picked it up and tucked it into her coat. "We'll bring it back by closing."

* * *

In the furthest booth at Granny's, Regina and Emma bent over the document, mugs of cocoa with cinnamon (Emma) and tea (Regina) momentarily forgotten.

"Thee has readily consented to all parts herewith- I can barely read this stuff even when you magically adjust the font." Emma grumbled. Regina had managed to make the letters shift from their calligraphy to Helvetica with a swirl of her hand.

"I can't believe you're making me read all of this anyway."

"Mr. Gold is slippery. Look, look at this part: 'of the damsel heretofore after referred to as Belle: and she shall be delivered up to Mr. Gold, whether or not pre-contracted to another, to be kept with at his discretion and for the duration of his necessity of said Belle.' I think that means something shady, Regina."

"Hey." Ruby came up to their booth with a bottle of red wine. She blew some dust off the neck. "The guy at the counter asked me to send you our best bottle in the house for being his personal savior." Ruby announced, putting it down with a thunk and getting a corkscrew out of her pocket. "At nine dollars a glass, this thing hasn't moved from the shelf in the last 28 years, but that just makes it better, right?"

"I don't know him." Said Emma, craning her neck to look at a swarthy man nodding to Regina. Regina looked over her shoulder. "Oh, Hercules , right." She gave a short wave to the counter. "He and Megara keep asking me over for dinner to thank me for getting them back together but…she's a little sassy."

"You're one to talk." Emma couldn't keep the smile from her face, her cheeks pinkened. "You're making a lot of friends, Regina. You're making a difference."

Ruby rolled her eyes, and Emma caught the look. "How about you, Ruby? What do you need to get your happy ending back?"

A mysterious smile played on Ruby's lips. "Actually…I think I found that all on my own." She wiggled her eyebrows. "Enjoy the wine, ladies, and if you need anything else too bad, I'm officially off the clock now." She said, pulling the cork out, and fairly dancing towards a girl with big blue eyes who was waiting by the door."

Regina turned in her seat, her face growing pale.

"No…surely not…"

Emma watched as the girl with blue eyes and Ruby kissed deeply in the doorway.

"Oh, how typical." Emma growled. "I know you don't like PDA, because you still can barely handle the fact you're gay, but if Ruby wants to kiss her girlfriend than GOOD FOR HER and-"

"No…Emma…" Regina's eyes were huge, her face stricken. "Ruby's girlfriend is Belle."


	36. Passcodes and Roses

"Okay, so we should just steal the Triton?" Emma whispered. Regina made a face.

"Everything in Gold's shop is _highly_ booby-trapped with unstable magic. Couldn't you feel it in the air? And I showed our hand asking for the triton, he'll probably magick that piece most of all now."

"So what do we do? How do we keep everyone happy?" Emma looked stern. "I could follow Ruby and Belle and see if they're the real deal or just, like, a fling-"

Regina shook her head. "That's not for us to decide. Ruby said Belle was her happy ending, and that's all I need to hear."

Emma smiled at Regina dreamily, leaning her head on one hand and staring at her appreciatively.

"What?" Regina snapped.

"You're right. You're absolutely right. And… I like that you're rooting for someone else to be happy."

"I don't." Regina snapped, her chin quivering a little. "It's revolting. All of these new, _horrible_ warm feelings towards any random peasant I come across?! It's _really_ clouding my thought process." Regina leaned forward in the booth, pressing one manicured hand to her temple, completely serious.

"Um, you mean empathy? And kindness?"

Regina's frown deepened. "They're a real hindrance."

"They're also kind of a turn on." Emma whispered across the booth.  
Regina cocked her head. "You know what would help clear my head, Princess?…"

Because Emma refused to apparate ("I've seen the Fly too many times." Was her excuse) they ended up speeding down the dark highway to Underland, Regina at the wheel, moving with expert precision deeper into the woods, practically jumping in her seat when Emma's hand traveled up the tightness her skirt made across her smooth, stockinged thigh. Once they got to the Underland parking lot her tires screeched to a stop. Regina blasted the door open with one hand and pressed her lips hard against Emma while backing her toward her satin-covered bed.

"Do you want me to dance for you?" Emma whispered when Regina gave her a moment for air.

"Can't wait that long." Regina gasped, and Emma could feel her heart pounding against her own chest. Regina thrust Emma backwards onto the soft satin covers, shucking off the surprised blonde's jeans with an easy flourish. "Maybe after the first round." Regina murmured, her dark glittering eyes hidden in the shadow of hair that fell over her face.

The black sheets glowed with a reflected sheen of the magic light Regina's mouth when it touched Emma's hip, and as her lips traveled to their destination the room glowed gold.

* * *

"Your phone…" Regina sat up, pulling the sheet from Emma, making her stir in her sleep.

"Whaa?" Emma was confused, exhausted, and limp. Regina sat up, resting her chin on her knees.

"It's going crazy. It might be Henry- I can't unlock it."

Emma rolled on her side and fished her phone out of her jeans. "Probably just Snow." She grumbled. _Getting ready to slut-shame me when I get home._ "Wait no… it's Gold…he wants to know where his signed contract is."

Regina leaned back, the covers slipping to her waist and exposing a sight that turned Emma's head completely from her phone's screen.

"Hmmm. Well, we can't sign it."

"Wait…what if you changed the phrasing on the contract?" Emma peered at Regina. "You were able to change the font. What if you changed the wording in that one line to say: 'we'll try to talk to Belle about it, but if she says no, that's too bad.'"

"Your legalese is astounding." Regina quipped, but Emma could see the wheels in her head were turning.

Emma reached over and gently pinched Regina's upper thigh. "C'mon, it's a good idea, we'll work out the phrasing and it's buried in the contract anyway. That way we're not lying to him: we can still girl talk with Belle about a little bit. But we don't have to force her into anything."

Regina laughed, her face suddenly shining with relief. "Uh oh Saviour, that's awfully close to wicked. What if I'm rubbing off on you?"

"Rubbing off on me? I wish you would." Emma caught her up in her arms and Regina started squealing with laughter.

"Text him back." Regina gasped, scrunching aside on the bed, controlling her glowing smile and using her imperious tone. "Tell him we'll meet him tomorrow morning with his contract. And then remove that ridiculous lock from your phone. You may be mine, but I resent the implication I'd go rifling through your misspelt text messages-"

"The code is QOMH." Emma said curtly, tapping it into the number pad for Regina's benefit.

"Oh." Regina sat up, trying to look impersonally interested. "And that stands for…?"

"Queen of my heart."

Regina's traced a heart on Emma's bicep, a faint gold line following her finger. "Damn right." She whispered.

* * *

Emma wondered if Mr. Gold could hear her heart pounding in her chest as they turned over the signed parchment to him. However, he only glanced to see their signatures were in place and then filed it away in a small metal filing cabinet behind him that Emma was willing to bet had a magical capacity to hold all his hundreds of contracts.

"Well, deliver me my Belle, and you'll have your Triton." Mr. Gold said, looking smug.

"Sure thing. Maybe we can even _dye her eyes_ to match her _gown_." Emma snapped, and Mr. Gold and Regina both looked at her confused. "Sorry…wrong reference." Emma mumbled. "That's from the movie _Wizard of Oz_."

Regina rolled her eyes. "Are you trying to turn me into Glinda? Is that where you got this idea of me doling out happy endings?"

"I'd pay good money to see you in pink." Emma couldn't help retorting.

"I might remind you the sooner I get my Belle, the sooner you get your triton." Mr. Gold leaned forward, his eyes suddenly sharp. "Shake a leg, would you, dearies?"

* * *

"Let me get this straight. You want me to just sit here while you go try and convince _my girlfriend_ to go back to Mr. Gold, aka Storybrooke's_ own personal Satan?"_ Red was furious, angry tears in her eyes. Granny's was almost empty, and the last customer stood up abruptly, threw money on the table and got the hell out at this outburst.

"She WON'T." Emma put her hands up. "I mean, I really doubt Belle wants anything to do with him. But she's also his happy ending and to get the Triton- We just agreed that we would talk to her about him, see if there were problems we could fix- but ultimately it's her choice."

"Wow." Ruby crossed her arms. "Wow, Emma. Do you know how many nights I've stayed up late talking with Snow, trying to convince her not to interfere between you and Regina?! I thought we were friends, Emma, but this is a hell of a way for you to show it. You wouldn't even BE in Storybrooke if I hadn't hooked you up with a job. And now you're going to try to straighten out my girlfriend? That's just fantastic."she snapped, throwing her dishtowel down the counter of the diner. Her tone was deepening, her pupils flickering into slits.

"That's the last thing in the world we intend to do." Emma was starting to understand why Regina had suggested on the way over that they not tell Ruby any details about their scheme. Emma had wanted to tell Ruby. Now she found it almost impossible to explain their plan in terms that weren't flat-out insulting."You know that we have to help Ariel-"

"Just get out of here." Ruby roared, fanning her hands in front of her face. "I can't even look at you right now. Get out of here before I totally lose it!"

Emma, blushing, hurried out of the diner, sick to her stomach, to see Regina and Belle further down the street, walking out of Game of Thorns flower shop, both of them laughing. Regina had a dozen roses under her arm.

"I really don't even understand how we got together anymore." Belle was saying. "I mean, snakeskin pants?"

"I'm telling you, google Stockholm Syndrome." Regina was saying. "Everything will become _very_ clear. Please give those roses to Ruby with my compliments." Belle blushed and gave Regina a quick hug. Regina, looking down the street, waved at Emma, who hurried to join her.

"Looks like Belle is quite happy with Ruby and has no intention of going back to Rumple." Regina beamed. "We tried. Guess we have to go break the news to Mr. Gold."

Emma felt her stomach clench, but nodded, smiling. "How do you think he's going to take it?"

Regina's head bobbed her head back and forward as though adding a column of figures in her head and said, "I think we're going to need at least two protection spells each. And maybe your dad's sword."


	37. Terrified Of Her

Mr. Gold's reaction, when it came, was not the fire and brimstone Emma and Regina had meticulously suited themselves against. Regina, thinking always as a mom first, had even gotten Snow and Charming to agree to keep Henry in the apartment, which she encased with the most elaborate of her protection spells, before they returned to Mr. Gold's shoppe at closing and revealed the liberties they'd taken with the contract.

His eyes focused on the contract in front of them as Emma pointed out the changed line (she hoped the right one, she still couldn't read the crazy old school calligraphy), and for a moment he held completely still. Emma could have sworn she felt the walls of the shoppe suddenly contract in and pulse out, like the throb of a wounded heart, but then Mr. Gold raised his head, his lidded eyes passive, his mouth in a line.

"I did not read it before accepting the deal. And as you say, of Belle's own will, she would not return to me...despite your presumably counseling her otherwise." His tone was flat, but still made goose bumps creep across Emma's neck. "But remember, our deal was still that you bring the Triton back after you've used it for your purposes. "

Regina shrugged. "Fair enough, Gold."

"We're not trying to cheat you here, we're just trying to help a friend." Emma added, and Gold nodded, his face still rigid. He turned from them and waved his arms over a counter, and a concealed glass case came into view, in which the Triton lay, gleaming in the dimness of the shop. It was ancient ancient and seemed to radiate an almost audible power, like a high pitched echo just within human hearing range. Mr Gold handed it with suitable solemnity to Emma, who was surprised at its weightlessness, it floated in her hands as though bobbing in water.

She and Regina, relieved, thanked him and headed out of the store, but when Emma looked over her shoulder through the glass as they hurried to the car she caught Gold's face, twisted with rage, a look of almost ecstatic anger in his eyes, a gleeful, twisted smile distorting his features.

* * *

Derek carried Shelley down the spiral staircase of his seaside mansion, her tail wrapped in wet towels, cradling her protectively. Regina, Triton in hand, raised it over her head and then lowered it in an inverted arc. Golden and white light, as opaque and scattering as foam, swirled around Ariel. When it cleared, she stood on trembling legs in her dress towels. Prince Eric put a hand around her waist, tears in his eyes. "I got you- steady, steady-" and the two kissed passionately, their lips meeting through the saltwater of Ariel's tears.

"We should return this-" Regina said to Emma "And give these two their privacy."

"Return it?" Ariel said weakly.

"I'm afraid that was what we agreed to."

"But- traditionally, it's always used in the royal wedding ceremonies of my people. I wanted to have it be part of our wedding day…surely we can hold on to it for a little bit longer?"

"We're ready to marry tomorrow, if need be." Prince Eric chimed in, and Ariel blushed, pleased, but then looked worried.  
"I mean, sure, tomorrow, if need be, although I still don't' know what length to hem the dress because I haven't bene able to try it on with shoes-"

"Don't even think about wasting a tailor's time with that, I can adjust it easily-" Regina offered.

Emma's phone had started chiming wildly, and she excused herself to check her messages. They were from Snow.

_Emma what happened w Ruby_

_! Belle is in the hospital!_

_Ruby is a mess!_

_Where are you Emma plz come to hospital ur dad is very worried_

"I-I have to go." Emma turned to the group, who were avidly discussing wedding logistics.

Regina looked at Emma. "Everything alright?"

"I don't know." Emma held her phone up, unaware that her face had blanched to white. "That's what I've got to go figure out."

"Okay, you- do what you have to do. I'll break the news to Gold that we're keeping it for another 24 hours."

"He can even come to the wedding!" Ariel added brightly. Emma was already heading for the door, her heart in her throat.

* * *

Snow bolted up from the waiting room chair when Emma entered through the hospital's doors, her brow furrowed. James, who had been at her side, looked grim, and Henry jumped up and ran into Emma's arms. She hugged him back but couldn't tear her eyes from her parents' faces.

"Where's Belle- and Ruby- what happened?"

"Belle walked in on Ruby after Ruby had…transitioned…into a wolf." Snow looked dazed. "Holding red roses which, when she's a wolf, it's the only color she really sees and…well she attacked."

"I'll call Regina. She'll fix it." Emma reached for her phone, but Snow put out a hand.

"The Blue Fairy is with her now, healing her scars. Dr. Whale brought her out of danger, now its just…a matter of restoring her appearance…" Snow grimaced, and Emma pictured the aching beauty of Belle's face, the perfect symmetry, the piercing eyes, and shuddered. "And after what Regina did it would hardly be appropriate for her to come here."

"Regina didn't do this."

"Didn't she?" Snow crossed her arms. Henry looked up at Emma, who pulled a dollar out of her pocket. "Kid, would you get me a coffee from the vending machine down the hall-"

"Let him hear this." Snow put up a hand, stepping forward.

"Trust me, it's okay." Henry muttered to Emma. "It's not going to be anything I haven't heard." Emma clenched his shoulder and glared at Snow.

"Just hear me out, Emma. Regina sends you to go talk to Ruby about something she knew would upset her, then she tells Belle to go give Ruby some red roses? The only color she can see when she's a wolf?"

"That's not what happened. Regina actually told me _not_ to discuss our plan with Ruby-"

"Then she probably knows the best way to get you to do something is to tell you not to." Snow said simply.

"Regina has restored a hundred happy endings. She's doing everything in her power, one mistake that she can't control and you're willing to write all of that off?"

"Why were you even willing to talk Belle out of being with Ruby in the first place?" Snow snapped. "You're trying to make her use her powers for good. But she's using you for evil. Emma, she's going to turn you into the same monster she is and then her revenge on me truly will be complete."

Their discussion was cut short by a low cry like a howl. Ruby, in a red plaid shirt and jeans, had staggered out of a hotel room, eyeliner cascading down her cheeks. Emma had never seen such agony in her life. Snow rushed to Ruby's side but Ruby pushed her away.

"What's the matter? Is Belle alright?"

"She's perfect." Ruby almost shouted. "She just doesn't want me in there with her. She doesn't want to see me ever again. She's- she's terrified of me." Ruby buried her face in her hands, her tall body shaking with sobs, broken and clearly on the edge of a breakdown. "And she should be, she should be, she should be…"

"Ruby-" Emma whispered, and Ruby looked at her, her eyes flaring, flickering again.

"You." Ruby growled. Snow looked over her shoulder at Emma. "Emma, get Henry and leave _right now_."

Emma turned on her heel without another word and rushed Henry out of the automatic doors, almost bumping into Mr. Gold. She stared at him, and blinked hard. "Gold? What are you doing here?"

"Regina told me Belle was in the hospital." Mr. Gold smiled, a nasty smile. "And that she was ready to see me." He leaned in close, so close she could feel his breath. "Regina knows better than to break a deal with Rumplestiltskin, dearie."


	38. Only Fair

Emma paced back and forth in the apartment in her black t-shirt and underpants, Henry sound asleep upstairs, holding her phone like prayer beads, her hands shaking, unable to sleep. Snow and James were staying with Ruby for now, she was still at the hospital, Dr. Whale had had to sedate her when Gold came to see Belle. Outside, rain was falling, beating on the windowsill. She felt like she was arguing with two people in her head: the Regina she had slept next to last night, the beautiful mother of Henry who'd worked so tirelessly to set things right, the best friend she understood better than anyone else, her teammate, her partner. And then, on the other hand, Regina the regular: constantly plotting, willing to kill Graham if that's what it would take to get Emma by her side. When Emma's phone chimed she almost dropped it, her nerves were so shot.

_Good news! _

It was Regina.

_Gold said ok about using Triton for wedding ceremony. He just wants to go to the wedding, which Ariel already offered anyway _

_Also, you and I are of course invited. Sunset service tomorrow, on Prince Eric's yacht. Got plans?_

_Emma?_

Her fingers were shaking too hard to text. She called Regina's number, her stomach sick as the dial tone sounded off in her ear.

"There you are." Regina's voice, so warm, so familiar, so intimate. "Is everything okay?"

"I don't know." Emma murmured. She didn't know what to say after that. Her heart was racing. What to ask? _Did you set up Ruby to almost kill Belle?_ _Are you a full on psychopath?_

"Okay, something's wrong." Regina could tell even over the phone. "Where are you? What do you need?"

"I need you to answer one question." Emma whispered. "Why did you give Belle red roses?"

With a silken snap like a battle flag, Regina apparated before her, phone still at her ear, her eyes wide.

"They had a lot of red roses at the store, and Belle was nice enough to stand there with a straight face when I asked why she wasn't with Gold, so I wanted to let her know I was happy for her and Ruby…" Regina's words skidded to a stop and she put out her hands. "Why do you ask?" she put her hands on her hips, and her old wary expression settled in her eyes. "What did Snow say?"

"Belle is in the hospital right now, she was attacked by Ruby when Ruby was a wolf."

Regina put her hand over her mouth, her expression softening. "Oh, my God! Is she okay!? Is _Ruby_ okay?"

"Ruby attacked Belle because she was holding red roses."

Regina stopped. She stood so still Emma wondered if she had cursed herself into stone. Then she shook her head, a wave of sadness washing over her face, and almost collapsed on the iron stairs that led up to the second floor. "You really think I'd do that? When we're this close?" her voice was so sad it almost rattled Emma's composure. "_Why_, Emma?" she knotted her hands in her hair, utterly distraught for a moment, but her anger clearly mounting, her voice changing, turning more cold. "Tell me, Miss Swan, why would I do that when Gold had already let us use the Triton? I can't wait to be _dazzled_ with your latest attempt at deductive reasoning!"

"Gold came to the hospital, because you told him to." Emma continued, striding toward Regina, calling up all her anger to keep from wilting into Regina's arms and telling her she believed her, no matter what, she believed her. "He said you knew better than to break a deal."

"Gold." Regina's voice was ragged. "Now you trust Gold over me. I tried so hard…" Her head hung forward, her eyes hidden in the dark of her hair, her face as stony as a doll's. "Where's Henry?" she managed.

"Asleep in his bed." Emma said, her fists clenched. "Well? Aren't you going to deny it?" Regina was motionless on the stair. It was freaking Emma out a little. She stepped forward and pushed her a little. "Come on. Say something. Deny it! Why don't you deny it?!" Emma got down on her knees and grabbed the lapels of Regina's trenchcoat, shaking her, fighting back tears. "Tell me you didn't do this!"

"I shouldn't have to tell you that, Emma." She shook her head slowly.

"Just tell me and I'll believe you." Emma begged. Regina took her face in her hands and stared at her.

"I swear it was an honest accident. I didn't mean to trigger Ruby. I didn't tell Gold to go to the hospital." The two women stared at each other, the only sound that of the rain outside, for a long time before Regina sighed, "Do you believe me?"

Emma pressed her lips together and looked away. "I don't know what to think."

"Because I broke your trust before." Regina said darkly. "Because no matter what I do, I will always be the Evil Queen."

Emma sat back and pressed her hands to her eyes. Regina had sounded perfectly sincere. If she had ever believed Regina, she believed her now. But how could she trust herself when it came to Regina? How many things had she turned a blind eye to before, because she couldn't stop loving her?

"So what do I do now…" Regina stood, her tone almost sardonically musing, pacing where Emma had walked back and forth before, staring down at the half naked figure of Emma, in her panties and t-shirt, crying in the darkness. "Do I seize you up and whisk you away to Underland and make you forget, in the way that I can, about how you really feel about me?" Emma looked up as Regina dropped to her knees and moved toward her, grabbing her shoulders. " Do I rip you away to another dimension, and magic you, and make you my puppet and sex slave… and lose the Emma behind those big eyes who hasn't let me rest since she brought home my son? Do I trade your perfect body for your much more perfect self?" it sounded like she was honestly debating, trying to assess her options, her face flushed, her eyes wet, staring at Emma as though scared to death to look away. " Do I freeze you in time until I set everything right, no matter how long it takes, here and in the Enchanted Forest? I would do that. I would do that, if that's what it took. But it wouldn't make you mine. You're not something I can control. There is NOTHING that I can do to make you mine… I understand that now."

She released Emma, holding her hands up as though at gunpoint. "You're my happy ending, so perhaps that's only fair." She managed, and with a flash of purple, was gone.


	39. The Uninvited Wedding Guest

Emma ducked into the harbor bathroom just before following Snow and James towards the gangplank leading onto Prince Eric's yacht, pink and white streamers and balloons blowing in the wind to mark the spot for guests. Snow had insisted she dress up in a blue formal gown, which contrasted almost comically with her gaunt face and disheveled hair, which hung in limp tangles around a face stained by the mascara Snow had insisted on swiping across her eyelashes in the car. She looked in the mirror and practiced a smile, which collapsed instantly. It was Shelley's big day, after all. Silver lining: Her mom was super happy she and Regina were "done."

Nothing like being done with your True Love right before a wedding.

Regina hadn't returned her calls, her texts, her screams. She'd driven to Underland last night, desperate to talk to Regina for five more minutes and found the place deserted. Not just empty of Regina: the spell on it was gone. The door had given under her hand and she'd stood inside the same dingily carpeted, empty, cobwebbed cheap strip club she'd first walked into, the same stains on the same walls. A song had been cued to play on repeat, echoing off the mirrors like the voice of a taunting ghost (one final stab from Regina? Or a last goodbye?) "No One Does It Like You" by Department of Eagles.

Was she wrong for not believing Regina? Or was she wrong for missing her?

She found Henry waiting outside the bathroom for her, poking at a tuft of grass with his foot, looking as patient as a parent. He closed her hand in his smaller one when she came out.

"I haven't heard from her yet." He said, squinting with one eye closed.

"Henry, neither of us want you to be in the middle of this."

"Just so you know." He said, and they walked toward the gangplank, where a man in some kind of naval uniform was telling the stragglers they had only a few moments left to board.

The sun was hanging lower in the sky, the wind seemed to rip across the water as Emma climbed on board the yacht with Henry. Most of Storybrooke seemed to be there, even on short notice. Two waiters were walking around with platters of champagne flutes, and pink and white streamers ran along two sections of chairs facing the prow of the ship. After all, Prince Erik had been about to marry someone else the day before the curse broke- apparently Ariel hadn't let the decorations go to waste.

"Hey you." Said a voice with a soft English accent. It was Alice, from Underland, dressed exquisitely, her hair pulled back in a velvet headband. "I haven't seen you since our dancing days." Emma gave her a hug, and she pulled Emma towards a group of the other dancers standing together by the chairs, laughing. The anchor was pulled up and with a heave and shudder, the boat sailed out of the harbor and toward the horizon.

It was hard keeping track of their new names, but Tiana, Jasmine, Tink all felt very familiar. They had a laugh when they realized they could still, accurately, call Emma Princess.

"Regina really helped me a couple days ago, she reunited me with Aladdin - she told me you two were engaged. Congratulations!" Jasmine said, pressing her hand and looking over her shoulder, a little puzzled. "Is she here now?"

Emma shook her head, trying to keep from tearing up again. "She wasn't able to make it today."

"That's too bad. It's so meaningful being at a wedding when yours is coming." Jasmine continued. Emma kept her smile up, though she felt her eyes itch dangerously.

"Yes, what a shame." came a voice behind Emma. Mr. Gold, in a formal waistcoat, strode toward her, leaning hard on his cane. "After all, she's the one who made today possible in more ways than one."

Emma stiffened beside him.

The sun was starting to turn the sky a brilliant magenta, stained with orange and gold behind the prow when the audience took their seats for the ceremony. The yacht had drifted to a stop, the anchor dropped, and swirling violin music gave the sunset's beauty a piercing sweetness. The Blue Fairy, in formal robes, came up the aisle, the Triton in her arms, Prince Eric following her and standing, smiling at the prow. Ariel came down the aisle in a simple white satin dress and a necklace of mother of pearl shells. The Blue Fairy smiled at the congregation and began, "In the midst of the storm that Storybooke has faced, in the confusion of who we are and who we have been, we have each found that what we ended up clinging to was the rock in our lives. And so often that has been another person-"

Emma saw, out of the corner of her eye, that Mr. Gold was standing, and leaned forward, watching as he stood and started drifting down the aisle.

"Ariel has explained the tradition of her people is to have the couple hold the Triton they give their vows. I will ask them to do so now-"

She extended the golden trident, but then, in a flash, it was pulled out of her hands. A grasp shot through the crowd, and Emma looked with certainty at Mr. Gold, who looked back at her and laughed, as the trident flew to his waiting hand. With one lazy motion he cast it, spiraling in a perfect arc, into the waves. As it made contact, distant thunder rumbled as the sun slipped into the ocean, leaving the horizon to darkness.

"What are you doing?!" Eric bellowed. Where the trident had disappeared, the water was roiling and bubbling, churning around a growing whirlpool.

"We have to get off this ship. Now." Emma breathed, grabbing Henry's hand. She shot a look at Snow, who shook her head in sheer bewilderment, James clutching her arm and scanning the horizon for some way to move overboard.

Emma, gritting her teeth, turned to her parents, dodging the panicked crowd. "Take Henry below decks, find him somewhere to hide."

"Absolutely not. You have to come with us!" Snow whispered, grabbing her arm.

"I have to think of Henry. You're not Gold's target. But I might be-"

Snow's eyes flitted from Henry to James and then she nodded, and the three disappeared towards the stairs down below decks.

When Emma turned again, the deck was almost emptied. The Blue Fairy stayed, looking bereft, and Ariel was huddled in Eric's arms. When they tried to move away, Mr. Gold seized them and held them magically to the spot. The boat was starting to rock from the rings of high waves, emanating from the growing whirlpool where the Trident had fallen, and Emma had a hard time just keeping her footing.

"What do you want, Gold?" Emma screamed, teetering toward him. "What do you think you're doing?"

Mr Gold turned to her and cocked his head. "Ah, the Saviour. I'm going to want you to hold still too." He gestured towards her and she felt a force, like the blast of a hose, but also felt it somehow deflect away from her, seeing the golden light of her inherent magic softly illuminate the creases of Gold's enraged face.

"These Saviour powers are the one thing I can never see. Why is that?" Mr Gold approached her, grabbing a handful of her hair. "It's the True Love, of course, but why can't I see True Love?"

"Because you threw it away." Emma said, remembering the long ago conversation she'd overheard on the baby monitor. "You denied true love and now you'll never get it back."

"You and me both, dearie." Mr Gold's expression seemed poised between a smile and a scream, but she could barely hear his voice over the wind. "One little white lie from me and you pushed True Love away. " His face was starting to swim in the blue dusk that was settling over the horizon like a curse, his eyes flinty points of light that hovered as unblinkingly as stars.

Emma felt her hands close into fists. "I have _never_ stopped loving Regina."

"Did you ever tell her?" Mr Gold cocked his head. "I never got to tell Belle." He pulled his head away, like a children's magician inspecting the effect of a balloon animal on a child, a condescending smile playing on his lips. "Do you feel that? Like a little raw wound where your heart should be? It just gets deeper and deeper. Nooo, you and Regina won't be giving me any more trouble, but then…you also took all of Regina's lovely hate away." He tsk-tsked. "How can I re-set the curse without all that powerful, powerful hate? It was hard enough to groom Regina to be both magical and practically dead inside. Where do I find that much potential, and cripple it, in Maine?"

Emma had heard enough. WIth a guttural cry she threw herself at him, grabbed at his shoulders, ready to knock him down, but he easily shrugged her off and snatched her wrists in his bony hands, turning her to face the horizon, pulling her back against his reedy, anemic chest and rapping his arms around her in a hold as close as a snake's. He was much stronger than he looked, she realized, and he was hissing in her ear, "Thankfully I've found another lady, and thanks to that Triton, she'll be powerful enough to let me re-set the curse, and goodness but she's full of hate. And _this_ time, I know better where everyone should go. And _this_ time, there will be _no Saviour to meddle with my plans_."

Emma could barely move because of how he physically held her, but now she was struck dumb and frozen with horror, watching the black tentacles fan out of the water. Ursula rose from the center of the whirlpool, clutching the Trident in her hands.


	40. Something Borrowed

Ruby answered the door on the third loud, echoing knock, her eyeliner in dark cried-out circles around her eyes. Seeing Regina she immediately snarled, but Regina grabbed the door with one gloved hand before she could slam it shut.

"Red, hear me out." Regina's voice was stern. "I'm here to help."

"You've helped _quite enough_." Red hissed. Regina crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, as though waiting for another tirade to finish. In her weeks of mending happy endings, she'd sat through a lot of lectures, and she knew she had a _dewsy_ coming. But Ruby stopped right there and collapsed in her chair, breathing deeply.

"You should get out of here before I get to angry."

"Put this on at once." Regina said gruffly, and held out a small rose charm on a long gold chain.

"Why? What is it?" Ruby shrunk back, afraid to touch it.

"It's an enchanted necklace that will keep you from becoming a wolf whenever you wear it. Sort of like that mangy cape you used to drag around. Take it off, and you can be a wolf again. But while you're wearing it, you and Belle can bicker as much as you want and you won't lose control."

Ruby took it, staring, and blinked fast. "Another one of your 'happy endings'?" Ruby said sulkily.

"I hope so." Regina's hair shaded her eyes, but Ruby could still see their emptiness.

"How is that going, by the way, buying yourself a bride by making nice with all of us ?" Ruby shot, although she was now, hesitantly, clasping the necklace on. She noticed, as soon as the clasp clicked into place, a sense of lightness, a feeling of release. "Think you can pull it off?" Ruby said a little more gently.

"We don't have that deal anymore." Regina said softly. "I broke her trust and no amount of happy endings is going to change that."

"So what's in this for you?" Ruby said, clutching the small gold tea rose pendant. "Why do you want to help me and Belle?"

Regina crossed her arms and looked embarrassed for a moment, but then as though the words were being forced out of her by some foreign instinct blurted, "I know what it feels like to watch yourself hurt the person you love and not be able to stop. To let your darker side take over. And I want to believe we can make it up to them."

Her phone rang and she stepped away without a backwards glance, especially when she realized the number was marked as "Fairest_My_Ass" which she'd used to label Mary Margaret's number even back in the days of teacher conferences and Storybrooke normalcy.

"Snow?" she practically purred with sarcasm. "I admit I'm very impressed you managed to fit this phone next to your ear, considering how far your head is up your-"

"Regina, listen to me, Mr Gold and Ursula hijacked Princess Ariel's wedding and they're about to kill half of Storybrooke." The frantic muffled sounds of a crowd and tinny, far off whistle of wind that came through her phone's speaker stopped Regina short, her heart pounding in her chest, and cutting Snow off before she could finish her sentence.

" Henry. Emma-"

"They're here."

In another moment Regina had disappeared into thin air.

On the upper deck, Emma was watching the purple tentacles that writhed below Ursula's gray, mottled torso slime their way across the white plexiglass flooring. When did this nightmare become her life? She tried again to wrench her way out of Mr. Gold's arm, squeezing her eyes closed with the effort.

"Not so fast dearie- look!" he said, the phlegm of his excited mouth snapping in her ear. When she opened her eyes again it was to see the yacht, just as before, but holding almost completely still, every person seemingly immobile. The red strands of Ariel's hair stood out behind her like a flag, her wide blue eyes open, tears poised to fall, Eric's arms shielding her, Ursula hovering close, hovering above her tentacles mid-air like a balloon.

"What is this?" Emma gasped. Mr. Gold had let her go, and she turned to face him. Over his shoulder she could see the waves frozen still in the distance, the red light shining through their peaks, and realized they were moving- just very, very, incredibly slow. They were all suspended in time.

"You have a choice, Princess." Rumple spat at her. "I've been – inspired—by your mission to set everything right, shall we say. I keep thinking, what if there was some way to undo the curse? To set things right, the way they should have been? For every person here in Storybrooke who was cheated of their happy ending, but especially for you, Princess. For you to have had your childhood with your mother and father. For you to have grown up in the Enchanted Forest, as you should have, and I realized…"

He took the top hat off he'd been wearing and held it out. "You know what this is?"

Emma trembled. "Well if Jefferson isn't completely crazy, then that's…a portal."

"Yessss. But not just any portal. A time portal." He spun it on one finger, letting it fall to the ground. "I can make a hole back in time to the first moment Regina and I discussed the curse. And we can undo the past." he pulled his jacket back and exposed a pistol at his side. "Can kill her."

Emma stood, staring at him, her face white, not venturing to speak.

"You do have the choice, too, of just letting time run out here-" he gestured at Shelley and Eric, who had cowered a little further from Ursula while they'd been talking. "Ursula and I will re-set the curse and I'll have Storybrooke just the way I like it... Or, Princess, if you simply pull a little trigger, and fire through this portal-"

He started spinning the hat on the ground, its edges glowing with violet magic.

"In the next instant, you'll be in the world you were meant to be in. With all the troubled history of your life here wiped away. With a family you know and love- a family who knows you. And all memories of this other life, all the heartbreak everyone here has suffered would not even be remembered. It never would have existed." His voice was so gentle, so lulling, Emma didn't realize there were tears sliding down her face as he spoke. "I am the only one who ever got to see the future before the curse, dearie, and what I saw before Regina interfered-" his eyes were round, mesmerizing, "It was a happiness very few ever know."

"Why me." Emma whispered. "Why are you asking me to do this?"

"Anyone who existed in the moment we are looking back upon can not touch the past without collapsing the portal. But _you_ hadn't been born yet, so _you can_ . That's why you are the savior. You can reach back and set everything right for your entire kingdom. I knew it then, just as I knew your name."

Emma held out her hand wordlessly. In the portal between them, she could see Rumple, torchlight reflecting off his lizard-skin face, skulking behind bars. She could see an elegant figure approaching him in a dark satin dress. Rumple put the pistol in her hand, and she felt her finger on the trigger. She lined it up dead center with the portal, training it exactly at Regina's heart.

"Yes." Rumple groaned. "Now."


	41. Happily Ever After

Emma aimed, clenched her jaw, braced for kickback, looked long and hard at Regina through the portal, then swung her arms up a few degrees and shot Rumple right in the chest.

"Nice shot." She heard a familiar voice say, and felt firm fingers dig into her waist. She turned her head to see Regina standing next to her, very pale, her jaw tightly clenched. "We have to work now. But we need to talk."

"Yes." Emma breathed, her hand floating down and intertwining with her Queen's.

And then things started to happen very fast.

Rumple burst into maniacal laughter, reaching in and drawing the bullet out of his bloodied shirtfront and crumpling it in one fist. Between them, the portal had closed. Regina struck her arm straight out and sent a bolt of purple lighting at him which he easily dodged, disappearing with a giggle.

"Regina- Ursula-" Emma cried.

"We got it!" screamed Tinkerbell. Emma, confused, realized Tink's voice came from over her head. The petite girl was zipping toward Ursula, aloft on wings like a dragonfly's. In another moment she'd seized the Triton and was quite determinedly trying to yank it out of Ursula's hands. The other former dancers were on deck, shimmering with a purple veneer that Emma instantaneously suspected was some sort of protection from Regina. Tiana, Jasmine, Alice, Zelda pulled off their earrings and kicked off their heels as they ran towards Ursula, forming a semi-circle around her, each grabbing two of her muscular tentacles . Ursula, unable to get the Triton from Tink's firm grasp or move her limbs howled with rage. Regina, unfazed, clasped Emma's hand in one hand and with the other cast a bolt of golden lightning at Ariel and Eric, freeing them from where they stood.

Tinkerbell, with one last tug, reeled backwards through the sky and dropped the Triton into Ariel's hands. Ursula, frantic, now started to desperately shift and skulk away, her great gray chest heaving, her eyes rolling in her head, gnashing her teeth."Gold! Help me!" she snarled, fighting to pull herself overboard.

Regina shot another bolt of golden lightning and Ursula, in human form, was writhing on the deck, gray legs paddling the air. The dancers parted while Ariel walked slowly toward Ursula, the triton glowing in her hands.

"She'll regret it if she kills her, we have to do something-" Emma nudged Regina toward Ariel. Regina let go of Emma's hand and strode toward Ariel, calling "Wait-" and Emma felt a flush of pride. Pride that was instantly cut short when Gold's bullet pierced through her.

Emma felt the searing heat directly between her shoulder blades, so intense and debilitating she expected to see the bullet continue out of her chest, but it was buried deep inside. The pain made the world shake inside her head, she couldn't breathe, everything became very small, very animal, and she was aware that something crucial inside her had been torn. She couldn't breathe. She was somehow on her knees. There was so much red below her. She couldn't breathe. Regina's arms were around her, Regina's face so close. A pair of pistols, it made sense. Nothing made sense. She couldn't breathe. Her shins slid in the hot blood, her hot blood, that was coming out of her.

"Your magic may be too strong for me." Mr. Gold snarled. "But you're only human on the inside, Saviour."

The sky above was white and Emma could only dimly see Regina's head bowed above hers, starting to crackle with only purple, their gold magic fading away. "Regina…don't let Henry see me…like this…promise…" Emma managed. Her teeth chattered, and she couldn't stop them, she couldn't hold things still.

"Emma?! Emma, stop this- Emma look at me. _Look at me, Miss Swan_-" Regina growled, her hands tight around Emma's, her lips- with their perfect scar- in a tight, taut snarl. Emma felt Regina's magic flash over her, but it seemed so far away. It would sort of reach her, and then ebb away. Regina was holding in a sob, anger making her shake. "I forbid this. I FORBID IT- Please stay with me!" her voice went up high and cracked at the last part.

"Regina -" Emma gulped, and called all her strength to focus her eyes on Regina's face, on Regina's dark eyes staring back at hers. "I love you…" That was the last of her strength. Regina's whole head seemed to fill her view, block out the darkening sky, but she couldn't see anything, couldn't even see Regina's large eyes, although they danced above her in the final instant before everything went black.

And then, it wasn't black. The sky came back. Emma felt herself choke on her own sudden intake of breath. Blood was in her brain again. Something was keeping her heart going.

"Holy shit." Tinkerbell said, rising slightly off the ground, where she had plummeted in the instant she thought Emma was dead.

Regina's fist had disappeared into Emma's chest. Cradling the limp blonde, Regina was keeping her heart beating with her own hand, and she was staring at Emma with the intensity of all her powerful mind, measuring her breaths and timing those beats.

"You are _mine_, Emma, and you're not going anywhere." Regina said in a whisper only Emma could hear. "Look at me. _Look at me!_"

Emma's eyes fastened on Regina's as she felt blood make its way back into her brain. So that feeling in the very middle of her, that delicate squeeze where her heartbeat used to be, that was…that was Regina. "Miss Swan, I love you too." Regina said.

Mr Gold took one step forward toward the pair of them, huddled and intertwined as they were, gasping and struggling in the pool of Emma's blood. Regina turned her head, fixed him with a righteous glare, and then a torrent of golden light blasted from the pair of them, a golden force field of dazzling brightness that lit up the night sky for miles. And when it faded, Gold was gone. No one would ever ask where.

* * *

"Not so fast, Henry." Snow said, jerking Henry back to the hospital chair next to her. "We're going to go check in on them at noon. We could go get some cocoa from the vending machine, if you want, or-"

Henry crossed his arms. "I don't get it, I _saw_ mom get the bullet out and heal Emma after we brought her in. Emma's fine now. Why did they say they needed a minute? Why don't we just go home now?"

Snow's cheeks pinkened. "I'm sure your moms have a lot to talk about. Maybe we can go visit Belle?"

"We're actually headed out." Ruby said, and Snow turned with a start to see Ruby, Belle leaning on her arm. "Belle's perfectly recovered."

"And I want to go apartment hunting." Belle looked at her watch. "I never thought I'd get tired of reading in bed but what can I say. I'm eager to start my next chapter." She winked at Ruby. Snow beamed at them. "So everything- you guys are okay?"

"We're okay." Ruby said seriously. "Are you in for-"

"It's a long story." Snow shook her head wearily. "But everyone's okay. In fact, Regina is way more okay than I ever gave her credit for." Snow rubbed Henry's hair as he smiled up at her approvingly.

* * *

It was a good thing Henry didn't sneak into the hospital room. The messy white sheets of Emma's hospital bed contained two very naked women who were still tracing their fingers up and down each other's lines (and watching, with a familiar sense of wonder, the little golden trail that always followed) and intermittently letting their words melt into kisses. Emma had been following Regina's collarbones with her lips when Regina asked in a whisper, "So why didn't you?"

"Didn't I what?" Emma asked, sitting up on one arm and pushing one shoulder back, aware of how it thrust out her breasts and made Regina ever so slightly less focused. But Regina seemed completely focused, for once, on her face, her large dark eyes scanning Emma's expression.

"Why didn't you just do what Gold said. Why didn't you…make everything the way it was before I- before I cursed the Enchanted Forest?"  
Emma squinted at her. "You were there for that?"

Regina looked down, although her fingers continued to cup Emma's hip and draw her closer, not willing even for a minute to stop touching her. "Mr Gold had the two of you moving at some weird speed, I'm not sure how. When I was apparating beside you, you probably didn't see me. But I was trying to tap into whatever he was doing to the two of you, and I could see the two of you. It was- very- well, there was nothing I could do to stop you. I figured…"

She laughed throatily, but nervously. "I figured I was a goner." She swallowed and looked down, and Emma reached out and touched the silky brown hair, picking it away from her eyes. Regina continued to look down. "You would have been better off." Regina mumbled. "I mean, objectively speaking, I did…well, fuck up your entire life."

"Hey. Look at me." Emma said. "This?" she flickered her finger between the two of them. "Yeah. It's crazy. It's fucked up in a lot of ways. But a world without you? A world without Henry?"

Tears slid out of Regina's eyes at their son's name.

"Every piece of heartbreak and pain we've been through is worth this." Emma's tone was somber, as she spoke. "Mr. Gold kept rattling things off about a family who knew me and loved me and all I could think of was you and Henry. Because that's exactly what we are."

Regina's lips met hers for a long moment, pulling Emma to her and clasping her in her taut arms as though Emma were a life preserver, and she'd been treading a stormy sea too long. "That's exactly what we are." Regina managed, her voice gruff. "That's exactly what we are."

"And Storybrooke-" several moments later, after a few more kisses, Regina seemed unable to keep the words in. "I mean, all those happy endings- your mother-" she was still unable to say the word without ruling her eyes, "Snow would say all those happy endings outweigh ours."

"Uh, Regina, I'm sorry, but there is no such thing as a happy ending living with only medieval technology in some weird monarchy in a forest." Emma laughed jokingly, but seeing how serious Regina looked she sat up, pulling a sheet discreetly up to her chest. (Regina, with a wave of her finger, tugged it magically down. Emma made a fake angry face and hoisted it back up.)

"Honestly, I think a lot of people are happier way happier in Maine than they were in the Enchanted Forest. People have agency here. They have more choices. They aren't crickets or cobblers or wizards anymore and they're happy about that. Snow had her happy ending when the curse happened, but a lot of other people just didn't. Some people were happy, some people weren't- like any other place or time ever. You can't- there's _no way_ to guarantee everyone a happy ending. There's just not. People get hurt and love the same person and want the same things and it's not up to us to decide who gets what. All you can do is let people make the choices they're going to make. I mean-"

Emma paused and pushed her stiff through Reginas, the two of them interweaving their hands. "I think it's important that you were accountable for mistakes you made and undoing damage you caused. Selfishly, I think it was especially important because its made you like yourself a lot more."

Regina rolled her eyes but she was unable to wipe the little half smile from her face.

"But no one can give a happy ending to anyone else."

"You could." Regina said, rising up on her arms, moving her face closer to Emma's. "You could give me a happy ending."

"Oh?" Emma giggled. "I think I know where you're going with this." Emma was already raring at another go for what she thought Regina was implying, but to her surprise Regina sat up and pulled a ring with a green stone from her own manicured finger. Drawing herself up, thrusting her shoulders back and arching her eyebrows, Regina turned to her, half naked, completely stripped of all make up, looking the most ravishing Emma had ever seen her.

"Emma Swan, will you marry me?" Regina asked.

Emma bit her lip and blinked fast, then wordlessly put her hand out, and Regina slid the wring on her finger. " I can't wait to tell Henry." Emma wept.

"We should put on some clothes first, but yes." Regina agreed.

"Oh, so now you want my clothes on…" Emma pulled her fiancée close, flicking tears out of her own eyes, trying to regain some sense of balance in what felt like a sea of piercing bliss. "Make up your mind, why don't you?"

"My thought is that ring gets me lap dances for life." Regina growled, the first of what would be many inside jokes on the subject, for many, many years to come.


End file.
